The Möbius Cycle
by Twilitbeing
Summary: Sonic and the crew intercept one of the Blue Typhoon's evacuation pods - a copy, adrift in deep space. They know something is up, but little could have prepared them for who they would find inside. Prequel to The Fabrics of Time. Revision in progress.
1. Chapter 1: Not Just Any Battle

**04Feb2012:** I've begun revising and re-uploading this story chapter by chapter. Depending on when you happen to read this, some of the later chapters might not have been updated yet. Revised chapters with have their titles centered and in boldface font; use that to distinguish them from the originals.

**11Feb2012: **The title has been changed from _The Theory of the Mobius_ [sic] to _The Möbius Cycle_. This originated when I started posting chapters on deviantART and ran into the character limit, but I've since decided to use the new title in all cases. (Part of this is because I thought "theory of the möbius" was a real term when I first wrote this; I was mistaken.)

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**Chapter 1 – Not Just Any Battle**

Tails sat in his captain's seat, watching the scenery outside as the _Blue Typhoon_ roared through space. Well, it didn't _roar_, really; in the airless vacuum outside, the powerful ion drives were perfectly silent. The bridge was another matter: the beeping of consoles and the bass hum of the frigate's cruise engines filled the crew's ears between the occasional brief snatches of conversation. The stars, many of them light-years away, appeared perfectly still; at this distance, they gave no sign of the _Typhoon_'s enormous speed.

On Tails' center display, the image of a large, gold, insect-like starship revolved slowly. He had been examining photos and recordings of this same vessel, the heavily armed and armored _Scarship_, for over an hour with little success. Their scanners, much like their weapons, had been unable to penetrate the hull, so they knew little about its inner working. The _Typhoon_ had managed to disable and escape from the self-piloted Metarex destroyer unscathed, but without any further understanding of their enemy, the victory was a shallow one.

There were a total of seven people on the bridge. Before a long row of colored displays on Tails' right sat the young Seedrian Cosmo, keeping watch over the radar, telescopes, and other scanners. To the fox's left were Cream and her hovering Chao companion, Cheese; the two were officially in charge of the weapon systems, although they kept tabs on all of the vessel's machinery. One level down from the rabbit sat Amy Rose, the _Typhoon_'s science officer; she studied her own console intently, cooperating with the ship's computer to analyze the long-range scan data Cosmo sent her. Across the aisle from Amy, helm officer Chris Thorndike monitored the vessel's path, making adjustments as necessary. Last but not least was Sonic the hedgehog. He held no official position on the ship – strictly speaking, he was a passenger – but his importance to the team was unquestioned.

There was only one other person aboard the _Blue Typhoon_at the time: Knuckles the echidna, named "chief of engineering" because of his unique understanding of the Master Emerald. As usual, he was in the generator room far below, guarding the massive gem and making sure the ship had a constant power supply.

The _Typhoon_ was currently bound for a particular region of space that Chris knew as the Orion stellar association, and that the rest of them had no name for. They were traveling in response to a fragmented message they had picked up. They had been unable to identify it for certain, but it had sounded like a Metarex distress signal. Where there were Metarex, there was bound to be either a stolen Planet Egg to restore or a Chaos Emerald to find. Whatever was going on, the Metarex were evidently having trouble with it, and that meant the crew of the _Typhoon_ had to be interested.

It had been five ship-days at relativistic speed since then, and they were getting close to the origin of the signal. Tails expected to reach the spot within a few hours' time, but, strangely, there were no planets or stars anywhere nearby. None of their scanners showed any sign of a Chaos Emerald. No one knew what to expect.

Tails was broken out of his reverie by Cosmo's voice: "The radar's picking up something!"

"What is it?" Tails asked, suddenly alert along with the rest of the bridge. Amy tapped a series of keys, examining the reading.

"It looks like a meteor shower," the hedgehog answered. "Dead ahead and closing fast."

"Shields up," Tails ordered. Cream promptly complied; a faint cyan ripple passed in front of the _Typhoon_'s bow, and not a moment too soon. Seconds later, the vessel was jolted by the force of a huge impact from something moving too fast to see. Even before the flash from the first hit had dissipated, a second object slammed into them just as violently. "Chris, reduce speed! Divert excess power to the shields," Tails instructed.

The starship slowed as debris continued to batter them, the protective dome of electrical force channeling their momentum into a chaos of incandescent shock waves. "Engines are running a little hot," Chris announced, and the bridge filled with an unaccustomed silence. The speed and force of the collisions had lessened, but even a single strike would still have been enough to demolish the ship.

"What's this coming from?" Tails asked Amy, staring around at the turbulent shield and still unable to catch sight of the debris.

"Some of these are pieces of Metarex battleships, judging by the style and the materials used," she answered, turning one of her screens to show him a photograph slightly distorted by motion blur. "The others look like ships, too, but the design is different." She paused. "Anyone else think this has something to do with that distress signal?" No one answered; they had all been considering the same thing.

They were interrupted once again by Cosmo: "Hey, it looks like the scanners have found something else." She examined a row of text scrolling over her screen, and her eyes widened. "It's a homing beacon! One of those ships is still operating!"

"Wait, you mean someone survived this?" Tails asked, incredulous. "Where are they? Can we get to them?"

"Ahead and to starboard, 150 meters... wait, 850 meters behind and growing?" She frowned, looking nonplussed, then gasped in alarm. "I think it's coming from one of them!" she exclaimed, pointing at the objects racing by outside.

"Well, what are we waiting for? We have to catch that ship!" Tails tapped a few keys, transferring control over the _Typhoon__'_s thrusters to his own console. "Chris, prepare for field acceleration. Knuckles, be ready down there in case we need your help. Everybody hold on; this could get rough." While Chris readied the system, Tails swung the ship around to face the opposite direction. The ongoing series of tremors shifted as the impacts moved around the frigate's port side. "Engage."

A multicolored glow suffused the _Blue Typhoon_, surrounding and taking hold of every atom and molecule inside it. A fraction of a second later, the entire vessel hurled itself along its chosen vector, a 174-degree hairpin turn that should have crushed it thinner than aluminum foil. The shield hung in place for a brief instant until the next impact blew it apart like a soap bubble.

The ship's normal colors returned, and the crew found themselves traveling along inside the fast-moving debris field. They now had a clear view of the rubble: charred and half-melted fighters, snapped engine cones splintered like tree trunks, and enormous sections of battleship armor that had once been a Metarex naval group.

_What could have caused this? _Tails thought. _Normal weapons blast holes and destroy smaller fighters, but they don't tear entire starships completely apart. They're moving nearly as fast as we were, too. Something tells me this wasn't just any battle._

Tails steered the _Typhoon_ through the stream of rubble, taking care not to change direction too much and set them many miles off course. As he did so, he spoke to Cosmo. "Have you still got a bead on the signal?"

She nodded. "It's right over there, the one casting a shadow." She pointed to a spot in the bottom left corner of the window, near what looked like the entire back third of a silver Metarex interceptor. Tails nodded silently and approached the spot.

As they passed a dismembered weapon battery, the crew spotted one of the unfamiliar ships Amy had mentioned. A cylindrical body, tapered at one end toward a cluster of four engines, made up the bulk of the vehicle. Three smaller thrusters, angled away from the body for steering, were spaced evenly around the opposite end, interspersed by what looked like low-mounted laser cannons. Three curved struts formed a hollow cone shape around the bow, making the vessel look like a squid with its tentacles pressed together. The entire thing was about half the _Typhoon__'_s length, heavily scarred but apparently in one piece, and painted a deep garnet red.

The source of the signal was much smaller than most of the surrounding vessels and debris. Rather than the dark mattes and bare metal of the Metarex or the polished fiery colors of the unknown warships, their target was eggshell white – the same color and finish as the _Typhoon_. Also unlike the other debris, the edges of which were jagged from battle damage or by design, this one was highly streamlined and smooth. Tails understood now how someone might be alive inside, though how it had escaped the destruction wrought upon the larger ships was beyond him.

Tails moved the _Typhoon _close to the tiny craft and slowed just slightly. The pieces around them now appeared to hang in space, twisting and cartwheeling slowly. "Activate the capture arm," he told Cream. She took hold of a small control stick, and a moment later a metal claw ending in a four-fingered gripper moved into view. The remote-controlled arm reached forward slowly, taking care not to hit any of the surrounding debris. The entire group watched as Cream expertly steered it to her target and, ever so slowly, closed the fingers until the claw held the ship firmly in its grasp. The room breathed a collective sigh when the tiny vessel held its shape.

"Nice work, Cream," Tails said.

"Thanks, Tails," she replied, politely as ever.

Tails turned back to the window and took hold of the controls once more. Working, if anything, more carefully than before, he began to steer the _Typhoon_ out of the path of the debris all around it. After several minutes, they finally reached the edge of the cluster of ships and moved into unobstructed space. Once there, Tails steered the frigate into a gentle left turn to set them back on course. With the autopilot taking control, he deactivated the ship's controls in his own console and leaned back against the headrest of his seat. After a moment, he spoke again.

"Amy, do you think you could go and check out that ship we brought in?"

"Not a problem," she answered good-naturedly. She got up and walked up the steps to the door behind Tails' seat, entering the short hallway and elevator beyond.

* * *

After checking to make sure the room was sealed and filled with air, Amy entered a code on a keypad, causing the door to the landing bay to slide open slowly. There sat the ship they had captured, still held in place by the capture arm, looking for all the world like a huge egg with short, stumpy, trapezoidal wings. She stepped closer to examine it.

In the front was a large sliding door with an angular number "2" painted on in red. Most of the body was white, with a single yellow stripe running down the middle and navy blue tips on the wings. Amy barely noticed these details; she had eyes only for the two words superimposed on top of the painted number, which read "Blue Typhoon."

Slowly, Amy looked over to her right, where the ten escape pods stood in a line at the other end of the bay, ready to launch. Number 2 was among them, identical in every way to the ship they had captured. The left wing even bore the little two-tailed spiral insignia that Tails painted on everything he built.

Something was definitely up.

* * *

Up on the bridge, Amy's voice suddenly issued from the speaker on the captain's console. "Tails, I think you should see this."

"What is it, Amy?" he asked.

"It's about the ship we picked up. It's… one of ours."

"What do you mean? All the ships are…" he began, but Amy cut him off.

"I don't understand any better than you do, but I'm looking at one of our pods. That's why I need you to come down here."

Tails frowned, still perplexed. "I'm on the way." He shut off the link and stood up. "You've got control of the ship, Chris," he said simply, and left. Sonic dashed from his spot at the top of the bridge and fell into step beside his near-brother; this sounded interesting.

When the two of them reached the bay, Tails' eyes widened; the craft actually _was_ a perfect copy of the original. He approached the pod and ran his hands across the surface in astonishment, sweeping away a thin coating of dust and chemical residue. Amy was right: it was identical to the emergency vehicles he had designed in every way, right down to the chipped-off paint on the "T" in "Typhoon." Tails remembered when that had happened. Sonic had called his name while he was assembling the pod, startling him and causing a hammer swing to go awry. Most disturbingly of all, he was looking at escape pod number two.

_Mine._

Looking down, Tails noticed the red beacon lights on the wings blinking on and off slowly. The ship still had power. He pushed on a panel below the door, causing it to swing open, and twisted a large red handle inside the compartment. He stood as the door sank inward with a hiss and a stream of vapor, then began to slowly rise upward into the ship. A part of Tails already knew what he would find, despite knowing it was impossible.

When the door had vanished completely into the hull, all three crowded around the cylinder that enclosed the single seat. Sandwiched between two thick layer of acrylic glass, a solid black LCD screen hid the occupant from view. Tails had to type his access code twice before his nerves had settled down enough to press the right keys. A small speaker chimed one, two, three times; the screen depolarized and became transparent without a sound. Sonic and Amy gasped in unison, but Tails had not yet remembered to breathe.

He was staring into the unconscious face of himself.


	2. Chapter 2: Stable

Thanks for the reviews; they really help in figuring out my flaws, so don't hesitate to voice any criticism you may have.

**04Feb2012:** Revised and updated.

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**Chapter 2 – Stable**

For the first time he could remember, Tails was struck dumb. The rational side of his mind, which usually had an answer for everything, was coming up blank. Everything he knew told him there was no possible way for the same object to be in two places at once; it went against the most basic laws of physics. And yet, here was the evidence, right before his eyes: a living, breathing replica of himself, more accurate than even his own reflection.

But something was wrong. Beneath his fur, the one in the capsule looked paler, less alive.

Amy was the first to recover from her shock. Seeing that Tails was still transfixed, she took it upon herself to open an instrument panel and check the unconscious fox's vital signs. There was a sharp intake of breath. "We need to get him to medical, now!"

Her voice jolted the other two out of their stunned silence. "Why, what's wrong with him?" Sonic asked, his eyes still fixed on the pod.

"His blood pressure is sixty over thirty-five and falling," she answered. "That's enough to keep a steady oxygen supply outside, but he's in serious danger now that we've brought him in here." When Sonic only looked at her blankly, she continued with an unusual amount of impatience in her voice. "It's the gravity! His body hasn't adjusted yet, and he's going into..." She stopped herself and rephrased. "His brain is suffocating!"

"Why didn't you say so before?" Sonic replied, instantly realizing the seriousness of the situation. He hoisted the unconscious fox out of the pod and sped off toward the _Typhoon_'s medical facility, Amy and Tails following at a run.

By the time they arrived, Sonic had laid their patient on one of the beds. Amy sent the other two to wait outside and immediately set to work, aided by the frigate's advanced computer system. Sonic and Tails alternately stood and paced outside the doorway, making halfhearted attempts at conversation, wondering all the while how anything they had seen in the last half-hour could be possible.

* * *

Nearly ten minutes later, Amy emerged from the room, looking slightly out of breath but hopeful. "He's stable," she said in response to their unspoken question.

"You mean he's okay?" Sonic asked, brightening.

"I mean he's not getting worse," she responded. "He's still unconscious and his vitals are way lower than I'd like, but I didn't see any signs of permanent damage."

"That still leaves one question," Tails pointed out. "Why was I – he – in such bad shape in the first place? The capsule didn't have a scratch on it, and from what you're telling us, neither did he."

"You're right, it seemed like his only problem was the hypotension itself; I couldn't find anything that might have caused it. I do have one theory, but I can't be sure. You know how if you turn a jet too sharply, or accelerate too hard for too long, you get dizzy?"

"Of course," Tails answered; he had done both countless times, and he knew the feeling well. "It happens because your body tries to resist the change in motion. Your blood isn't strapped into the seat like the rest of you, so it gets concentrated in one area and can't reach the brain very well."

"Remember how the pod and all those ships were moving close to our top speed? Maybe whatever got them going that fast had the same effect on a much higher scale and caused permanent damage. We don't exactly know what that sort of injury would look like."

"How could he survive that at all?" Tails asked, suddenly gripped by an illogically strong sense of urgency. "Every arterial wall in his body would have to be distended from the pressure to create the sort of problems you're talking about. That much force would cause serious brain damage, no question."

"Well..." The hedgehog broke eye contact, shifting her weight from side to side uncomfortably. "To be perfectly honest, I don't know if we can rule that out."

Sonic broke in at this point. "It doesn't matter how he got this way or why. What matters is that we figure out what's going on. How did we end up with an extra copy of Tails and his escape pod?"

Tails shook his head, glad for the mental challenge. "I don't know any more than you do about that one, Sonic. It shouldn't be possible, but obviously something _is _possible that looks very similar to it. I say we call everybody down here, then see if we can wake our patient. He might be able to explain. Agreed?"

Amy nodded, and Sonic responded with a rather forcibly cheerful, "Aye, captain!"

Tails turned to a computer panel on the wall and spoke into it, sending his magnified voice over the _Typhoon_'s intercom. "Everyone, please report to the medical bay. We found a survivor."


	3. Chapter 3: Angels

**04Feb2012:** Revised and updated. I considered merging this one with Chapter 2, but it would have made it much more complicated to re-upload.

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**Chapter 3 – Angels**

Tails' words issued from speakers positioned all around the _Typhoon_, reaching the ears of the three remaining bridge crew and Knuckles down in the generator room. Chris double-checked their course and set the ship's autopilot, and all four of them departed for the medical bay to see what, and who, the others had found.

Tails stepped away from the panel, shutting off the microphone. Together with Sonic and Amy, he entered the room where the survivor lay unconscious. Plastic tubes and taped-down wires snaked from the young fox to his own automated medical squad. Beeping monitors kept diligent watch over his vital signs; computer-controlled pumps and valves dispensed chemicals that kept his body running in spite of itself. His chest rose and fell slowly.

Seeing the survivor in such a state filled Sonic with an odd emotion – a sort of confused guilt, as if his own mind resented him for not feeling true pity. Tails was standing beside him, fully conscious and in perfect health. The figure on the bed seemed unreal, an enigma rather than a person.

Cream was the first to enter the room. She saw the unconscious fox on the bed and ran to him, crying "Tails!" in a frightened tone. She looked up, about to ask Amy what had happened, and saw the other Tails standing across from her. "But… how…?"

Tails shook his head, not sure whether he had an answer. Before he could reply, Cosmo entered as well. "Cream, what-?" The Seedrian froze, catching sight of both kitsunes at once. "Tails...? You're-"

"I'll explain once everyone gets here," he assured them both, not mentioning that he knew almost nothing about what had happened. It was difficult to even decide what he _did_ know.

Chris arrived next; he simply stopped in the doorway, completely at a loss for words. Knuckles gently pushed past him and approached the huddle that had formed around the bed, trying to see past them. When he finally caught a glimpse of the two foxes, one on the bed and the other beside it, he jumped back with a yell of surprise.

"Sorry," he said, embarrassed. He recovered his composure, crossing his arms and meeting the crew's startled looks with forced unconcern. "What? It's not exactly a _normal_ thing to see."

"If you'll calm down," Amy replied impatiently, "we're about to see what he has to tell us." She reached for one of the devices hanging beside the bed and adjusted a dial to an image of a sun. The machine beeped, and some of the dispensers emitted clicks and whirs. "Sedative," she told them, by way of an explanation.

Tails nodded, understanding. It would take time for the new combination of medicines to take effect, so he decided to fill the rest of the crew in on recent events. "Here's the general idea of how we ended up with..." he hesitated, then decided to assume the obvious, "...two of me. The ship we recovered is a duplicate of one of our own escape pods, and this is who we found inside it. We don't know what happened to him before, but his blood pressure had dropped far below normal; he might have died if Sonic hadn't gotten him here in time, or Amy hadn't been able to stabilize him. Either way, he survived. We can't think of any other way to figure out what's going on, so we're going to try asking him."

They waited in silence, listening to the subtly increasing tempo of the monitoring equipment. After a few minutes, half a dozen of the machines registered sudden bursts of activity; the figure on the bed stirred slightly. It was the tiniest of movements, but everyone saw it. Sonic, Amy, Cosmo, and Cream leaned in around the patient, leaving Tails, Knuckles, and Chris with partial views from outside the circle.

The patient moved again. His brow furrowed, and a very slight cough escaped him. The beeping of the EKG – his heart rate – quickened noticeably, settling into a sustained, faster rhythm. He opened his eyes partway, squinting at the bright fluorescent tubes overhead. Slowly and uncertainly, his voice barely more than a whisper, he spoke.

"Angels," he breathed, blinking once. "Am I dead?"

"No, you survived," Amy told him. "We're not angels."

Without moving his head, he stared at each of their faces in turn. "You sure?"

"Yes," Amy said, not following his gaze. "You're on the _Blue Typhoon._"

He looked at her, uncomprehending. "You mean… I made it back?" No one answered; they weren't sure what he meant. He sighed, then turned his head slowly. "Never mind," he continued, his voice clearer now. "Am I here?"

While the rest were confused by this, Tails stepped forward without hesitation. The group around the bed parted to let him through. "Yes, I am," he answered as he reached the patient's side.

"Good," the figure on the bed replied, not seeming remotely surprised to see his exact likeness standing a few feet away. He sat up, swaying dangerously for a moment before steadying himself. Tails mirrored his every movement unconsciously; the resemblance was too perfect, the mannerisms too familiar, to be anything but his own.

"This is... important." The patient's voice was clearly audible, but words seemed to cost him more breath than they should have. "The _Typhoon _is... going to... be destroyed. I tried to... to stop it from... But I failed."

"What do you mean, 'going to be' destroyed?" Tails asked, afraid of what he thought the answer would be. "You're not saying you were... well, _there_?" But he was. He had said it exactly the way Tails would have.

The fox nodded. "Please... you have to save the ship. All of you... you have to survive."

"But how do we do that?"

He paused, not meeting the captain's eye, and Tails saw the answer before he heard it. "I don't know. All I know is... what I did... I tried to do... was... would've..." The fox swayed again, breathing heavily. "...is the... the wrong choice." He fell backward abruptly, seemingly unconscious.

"What happened?" Knuckles asked, sounding worried.

Amy bent over the fox, frowning at his unchanged appearance. Seconds later, one of the monitors alerted her to the problem. "Oh no."

"'Oh no' what? What's wrong with him?" Knuckles repeated, jumping in place in an attempt to see over the heads of the others. "Did he pass out?"

"His blood pressure's dropping off. He must have only stabilized because he was lying down..." She hurried around to the other side of the bed, scanning the row of displays as she passed. She was about to turn the dial back to its former position when someone caught her arm. She spun around, ready to snap at Sonic for interfering, and saw that the hand belonged to Tails. He motioned to the patient, who had opened his eyes and was speaking again.

"There's more. It will happen... when you reach the... the source. Please," and here the fox raised his head, fixing Tails with an expression of supreme urgency, "...listen. You have to survive. Don't make the same... mistake... I did. Sur-... survive..." He tried to say more, but he couldn't seem to muster the breath to form words. His eyes fell shut again, and the machines erupted into a frantic chorus of alarms.


	4. Chapter 4: Something Few Ever Get

**11Feb2012:** Revised and updated. The general structure of this chapter is unchanged (as usual), but it now has much more detailed description and (IMO) better writing than the old version. I felt it was particularly important to "update" this chapter, since parts of it will become very important in future stories. (If you're not sure what I mean by that, finish this story first.)

Read & review.

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**Chapter 4 – Something Few Ever Get**

"What source? What's going to happen?" Sonic demanded, grasping the unconscious fox's shoulders with both hands. "Come on, talk to me!" he shouted, shaking him.

"Sonic, that won't do any good!" Amy admonished, pushing him out of her way as she darted from machine to machine, frantically working the IV controls in an attempt to keep her patient alive. "He's passed out, he can't hear you."

"How do we help him, then?" Sonic retorted, uncharacteristic anger in his voice.

"Lift up his legs," she answered, but did not elaborate. When no one moved, she turned toward them. "Well, what are you waiting for?" She had taken on a familiar air of command, the one that added 'if you value your health' to the end of every sentence. They knew better than to question her reasons; Tails' medical equipment and her own experience had never yet failed them. While they did as she instructed, Amy continued to adjust the medicines flowing into the young fox's body. Despite her best efforts, his blood pressure continued to drop.

Before long, the EKG alerted Amy to another danger: the steady beeping wavered, slipping briefly out of its two-part tempo and settling into a different one. The heart's normal rhythm was becoming unstable.

"Out of the way!" Amy called, rushing around the foot of the bed and unhooking a latch on the front of the heart monitor. A small drawer sprang open, revealing a pair of gel-coated plastic pads – defibrillator electrodes, capable of delivering electric shocks with enough speed and precision to save lives. Amy grabbed both paddles with a rough yank, unwinding several feet of wire from the machine, and turned to face her patient again.

_Bee-beep, bee-beep, bee-beep, bee-beep-beep-beebeebeebeebeebeebee..._

Every other heartbeat in the room quickened at the noise – fast, panicked, and desperate, as if the machine itself were crying for help. A cold lump of dread fell into the pit of Amy's stomach as, for the first time outside the _Typhoon_'s training simulations, she recognized the sound of fibrillation – a heart muscle shivering completely out of control.

"Move!" she ordered with renewed urgency, sidestepping around Cosmo and slapping the adhesive pads into place on opposite sides of the patient's torso. While the gel soaked into his fur to complete the circuit, Amy turned back to the machine and flipped a pair of switches next to the drawer she had just opened. "Clear the patient," she instructed, while the same words appeared over the EKG's graph.

In a single movement, all seven crewmembers stepped away from the bed and stood in a loose ring, watching anxiously. The EKG, now in control of the defibrillator, emitted a sharp warning tone; the unconscious fox twitched noticeably as the paddles sent a burst of current through his chest. For a fraction of a second, his heart rate dropped to nothing.

_Beep, bee-eep, bee-beep_ – a slow, faltering rhythm. A brief moment of cardiac arrest had ended the uncoordinated muscle spasm, just as the defibrillator was designed to do, but the pulse was still dangerously irregular. Sonic started toward the bed again, but Tails threw out an arm to stop him. The EKG sounded another alarm; the patient's upper body tensed for several seconds as the next series of charges passed through.

The machine reset his heart four times, each with a new pattern of shocks tailored to its steadily worsening condition. Four times it slipped back into a faulty rhythm, stubbornly refusing to fight its own destruction. A fifth discharge, a fifth drop into stunned immobility... and nothing else.

The EKG removed the directions to "Clear the Patient" from its screen and replaced them with a single word: "Asystole." For the first time in the entire procedure, the machine fell utterly silent.

At once, Amy rushed to the bed, knocked both electrodes aside carelessly, and began the two-handed compressions which they all recognized as CPR – a last-resort method for moving blood to a patient's brain. Despite her persistence, they could sense she was driven by desperation rather than reason. She gave no instructions, almost as if she had completely forgotten the rest of the crew. Even the CPR itself seemed to be a forced, automatic effort; Amy _always_ counted compressions out loud in practice, and now she was silent.

Wordlessly, Tails stepped in front of Knuckles and Chris, reached for the IV controls, and turned the center dial to its leftmost setting: a simple empty circle. Every one of the ten-or-so pumps and siphons uniformly came to a stop; their services were no longer necessary. The barely audible whir of the machines gave way to a new, louder silence that seemed to pierce Amy's single-minded concentration. She turned away from her patient in a blur of magenta and rounded on Tails, who recoiled half a step in surprise. "What was that?" she demanded furiously, jabbing a finger at the control panel. "Turn it back on, now!"

Tails swallowed, trying to recover his voice.

"I mean it!" Amy barked, her quills bristling up and escaping from their normally well-kept hairstyle. Glaring at Tails with teeth bared, less than a foot away from his face (including four inches of height), the hedgehog was genuinely intimidating. To the fox's silent relief, Sonic chose that moment to put a steadying hand on her upper arm. Almost the instant she saw who it was, Amy's aggressive posture relaxed a little, and Tails' fear evaporated as quickly as it had come.

Still not saying a word, he pointed across the hospital bed at one of the many screens displaying the patient's vital signs. Amy followed his arm to a series of five horizontal lines, each apparently taking the same measurements at a different point. A bundle of wires sprouted from beside the screen, followed a bedpost downward, and branched out into a web of elastic bands and straps that fit snugly over the patient's head. It looked as if the machine had been put on standby, but vertical bars still swept across the display every second or so, updating the graph with the newest data. The monitor was working perfectly; the organ being monitored was not.

Amy stared at the screen for several seconds, one hand still gripping the bed's railing tightly. "When?" she finally asked, barely above a whisper; only the complete silence in the room let them hear her at all.

"It went flat as soon as he stopped talking," Sonic replied. "I thought you noticed."

Amy blinked once, and then her entire presence seemed to deflate, as if the realization had punctured her with an invisible needle. She hung her head; her shoulders slumped; her quills slowly fell back down, making her look half the size she had seemed before. Sonic changed his restraining hold into a reassuring arm-across-the shoulders, doing his best to say 'You did everything you could' without words. She lifted her head to face him and tried to force a smile – failed, but lifted her head all the same. She had never lost a patient before.

At the time, nobody except Tails and Amy understood exactly what had happened. The rest didn't know that the machine with five flat lines was called an EEG, or that is stood for "electroencephalography," a technique for measuring activity inside the brain. They were unaware that the bottom line on this particular EEG represented the brain stem, where controls for the most basic of bodily functions were housed. They had no idea that the heart, alone among organs, was _not_ entirely dependent on the brain, but could actually function for a short time on nothing but its own circuitry. They had never considered the possibility of a dead person's heart continuing to beat.

They knew only that Tails had carefully researched the work his machines would need to perform, and that Amy had twice the medical skill anyone would expect from an amateur. The rest of the crew might not know, but they trusted Amy and Tails to know.

By unspoken agreement, all seven of them observed a brief moment of silence.

* * *

The ceremony began about half an hour later. It was nothing elaborate, just a small tribute to the mysterious young fox and his sacrifice. Sonic and Knuckles carefully returned his body to his ship – both products of the same event, whether exotic coincident or monumental decision. He looked just as he had when they first found him: not quite asleep, not really dead, just still. His hands, which were clasped on his lap, enclosed a small hard drive containing dozens of copies of the same message, written in every language the ship and her crew knew.

_You have found the tomb of Miles Prower, captain of the vessel called "Blue Typhoon" and our great friend and colleague. By unknown means, he escaped from his role in future events, found his way to the Typhoon before his own departure, and warned us of a coming catastrophe. This was his final act. We intend to ensure that his sacrifice does not go to waste. If we succeed, many lives may be spared. If we fail, this may be the last record of our existence and our purpose. If you know nothing of our fate, know that we will never abandon our mission._

The words ran once again through Tails' mind as he stepped forward to stand in front of the tiny craft. He punched in his access code mechanically, sealing the inner compartment and blacking out the LCD layer. He turned and scanned the faces of his fellow crewmembers. Their emotions ranged from anxiety to uncertain half-grief and, in Amy's case, stoic unreadability. He faced the craft again and pushed the red locking handle downward; it sprang back to its original position, specifically engineered to make closing much easier than opening. The outer doors swung shut and pressurized with a hiss. The pod, previously moved to the station that normally held its counterpart, sank down through a hatch in the floor and vanished from sight. A moment later, the launching rig sent a tremor up through the deck, and the crew saw it streak off into the distance through the landing bay's long, narrow slot windows.

Tails turned once again toward his crew and hesitated. _Say something!_ He cleared his throat. "Well, you all know why we're here." _Not like that, moron!_ He had never enjoyed speeches. "We're here to honor Miles Prower, who gave his own life in order to save those of his friends." _They all know that! __ Quit making small talk!_ "Now it's our turn. He's given us something few ever get: a real chance to avert disaster." _There, was that so difficult?_ He kept going, and the words seemed to arrange themselves more willingly now. "He died so that _we_ might survive, and that makes it doubly important to make the most of the advantage he gave us. He wouldn't want us to spend time mourning his death. I know this, because I agree with him. We should take what he told us and _change_ the future, _change_ his death. I don't know when or how we'll get a chance to do that, but there _is_ a chance. We would be fools to ignore it." _Aaaand... curtain._

A moment passed in silence. This was broken by Sonic with a call of, "Here, here!" igniting a babble of similar replies from everyone. "So, captain, what's the plan?"

Tails frowned, weighing his answer carefully. The situation had too many variables, and they knew too little about any of them, to even consider a specific plan of action. "I'm still working on it," he answered finally. "Chris, you have the helm. Everyone else, go about your business for now, but I want all of you on the bridge in fifteen minutes to discuss our next move."


	5. Chapter 5: Cause and Effect

**24Feb2012:** Revised and updated. Most of the shakier Sci elements have been fixed, and I'm more satisfied with the Fi after a few other changes. (I've also started hyphenating "time-travel." It makes these explanations much easier to read.) At a reviewer's request, I'll be removing the majority of "Author's Notes" from the text, but sometimes I just can't help myself.

Read & review.

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**Chapter 5 – Cause and Effect**

Fifteen minutes later, the crew of the_ Typhoon_ had gathered once again on the bridge. The ship was still set to autopilot; nobody could be spared from the critical discussions about to take place.

"Let's start with what we already know," Tails began, speaking to the room at large. "We know that, at some point in the near future, the _Typhoon_ will be... well, _could potentially be_ destroyed. It may or may not be possible to avoid this; we're going to work under the assumption that it is." Scattered nods of agreement. "We also know that a battle involving several dozen ships occurred, or will occur, somewhere in the vicinity of this event. We can also safely assume, based on the speed of the debris, that large quantities of energy were somehow involved. I think the most important question right now is what sort of event to expect. What would allow _me_ to arrive here with knowledge of the event, and what could have created that debris field?"

"That's easy enough," Amy answered. "The simple answer is time-travel. The person we found is your future self."

"But that's not possible," Knuckles spoke up. "I mean, time-travel is sci-fi stuff, right?" **[Lawl.]**

"Not necessarily," Tails replied. "It's never been done as far as I know, but according to Engel's special theory of relativity, it might be possible. The perspectives of two objects in relative motion are distorted, so that- Well, in a nutshell, time slows down when you move at high speed."

"Wouldn't I have noticed that?" Sonic asked.

"_Higher_ speed, Sonic. Suppose you were to board a spacecraft and fly at relativistic velocity for a while before slowing back down. To the outside universe, the voyage takes one year, but from your perspective it might feel like a few months. The faster your movement, the greater the difference in time flow."

"But that isn't what we need," Amy pointed out. "From what you said, fast travel just takes you farther into the future, not backward."

"This is where it can get confusing," Tails replied. "Everything in special relativity is based on the speed of light – the difference, to be precise. When some particle moves _at_ light speed, the time distortion is infinite. Light doesn't age – not that we ever thought it would, but you see my point."

"So..." Knuckles stared at the floor in concentration, tracing lines in the air with his gloved hands. "...going _faster_ than light? Would that take you into the past?"

"No, it wouldn't," Sonic replied. "That would make time run backwards inside your ship. We want it to happen _outside_."

"Actually, Knuckles is close," Tails added quickly, seeing the conversation starting to get ahead of itself. "You have to understand _all_ of time in the same terms. Light takes time to travel, but since light speed is a physical constant, you ignore those delays. If a star went supernova five years ago, but the light still has another week before it reaches us, then as far as we're concerned the star is still there."

"But it _isn't_ there," Sonic objected. "It already exploded, and just because we can't see it doesn't make it any less true."

"In a sense, you're right," Tails explained, dreading the tangled heart of the idea he was about to try to make sense of. "But _because_ we can't see it, we can't make any decisions based on it. The only way to find out early is if somebody watches it happen, _then_ travels faster than light and delivers the news before we can see it for ourselves."

"How is that time-travel?" Knuckles asked, looking nonplussed. "It still has to happen before that one person can see it, and he can only tell people about it after _that_."

"That's the perspective of the time-traveler, yes," Tails answered, taking care not to misspeak and tie a knot in his already tortuous description. "But when he delivers the news, he gives it to us before we could possibly see the event for ourselves. _From our perspective_, the information comes from the future."

Amy wasn't convinced. "But even if we count that as time-travel, it doesn't explain our situation. There's no way a ship limited to our technology could actually outrun light, much less an escape pod."

"That's exactly what I've been trying to figure out. It's possible to slingshot around a powerful gravitational force – we've done it with planets and moons – but even the most massive black holes wouldn't be able to throw something _that_ fast. It's not even a technical limitation; there's just no physical way to concentrate that much energy in one direction."

"None that we know of," Cosmo broke in unexpectedly. "There are strange things out there, forces more mysterious than a black hole and more powerful than a supernova. I've seen enough of the galaxy to believe that nature is capable of anything."

"Maybe," Tails replied with intentional ambiguity, "but it would still be very difficult to perform. Traveling backward in time brings a fundamental flaw into how the universe operates. An object can move freely across the three spatial dimensions, but the fourth one – time – has limits. You can only progress in one direction, and the greatest change anything can manage is coming to a stop. Everything we know about reality is based on which events can affect which others, and _all_ of that depends on time. The harder you try to break free of those limits, the stronger the forces opposing you become."

"None of which proves that time-travel _can't_ happen," Amy insisted. "The whole point of technology is to make things happen that are unlikely in nature. Maybe some other civilization is going to be involved in the destruction of the ship."

"Hold on, Amy. Tails' time-travel might not have even happened at the same time the _Typhoon_ was destroyed," Sonic pointed out. "He didn't have time to explain much; he could have spent years finding a way to come back here."

"I don't think so," Amy answered. "He looked identical to our Tails – no more than a few months' difference, if that."

"That's not evidence of anything," Knuckles broke in. "Chris here is living proof. It took him six years to figure out a way to come here, but he came through looking just like when we met him."

"Actually, I think that was an accidental side-effect. See, I was trying to use the old location of Mystic Ruin as an anchor, and it's possible..."

They continued exchanging ideas, which steadily grew more and more far-fetched as the minutes passed. When, after nearly an hour of this, they had gotten nowhere, Tails seized the next pause to interrupt the discussion. "Exactly how he got here isn't important. What matters is _why_. I think we can safely assume that he came back in time as a result of the same event will destroy the _Typhoon_. This may have something to do with the Metarex distress signal; I'd even go so far as to guess they were in the same situation, which would explain the debris field."

"If the place we're going is the same place the _Typhoon_ is going to be destroyed," Cream broke in, "shouldn't we just turn around?"

"It isn't that simple," Tails answered. He paused to collect his thoughts. "He... well, the survivor didn't tell us where or how it would happen, only that it would be when we reached 'the source.' The one we found might have been warned by _his_ future counterpart and decided to reverse course, accidentally sending them straight to the place he was trying to avoid."

"I was with you until 'the source'," Knuckles began, "but I kinda lost track after that."

Tails took a breath and tried again. "Has anyone here ever heard of a Möbius strip?" Silence; he had expected as much. "It's a geometric shape that has only one face and one boundary com-" He paused. "...one edge. Unlike a lot of weird shapes, you can actually make one of these; it's just a circle of ribbon or paper with half a twist in it."

"Where does time-travel get involved?"

"The shape can be an analogy for certain situations a time-traveler could create," Tails continued. "A Möbius strip looks like an ordinary flat band with _two_ sides and _two_ edges that never intersect; the weirdness can be caused by very small details, only visible on close inspection. Imagine that the surface of the strip represents time and space, and you're walking along it." He stopped for a few seconds, letting the rest of the crew fix the image in their minds. "You're not allowed to cross any edges or go back in the direction you came from. On a normal ring, you'll travel in one full circle before you make it back to where you started."

The crew murmured in agreement; many had closed their eyes by then to better visualize Tails' words.

"In some theories, time travel has a similar effect to the half-twist in a Möbius strip. Instead of bringing you back to where you started, traveling in a circle would put you on the _opposite face_. You'd be looking at the same general area of the strip, but from a different direction."

Knuckles raised a gloved hand. "Does that mean we're going to be stuck doing the same thing over and over? I mean... you said there would be differences, but..." The echidna rested his forehead in one palm, trying to wrestle his thoughts into coherent words.

"The analogy isn't perfect," Tails clarified. "The hardest thing to understand about these 'Möbius cycles' is that there's no actual repetition for the people inside; the 'loop' is completely abstract. Each person – object, particle, what have you – only experiences one series of events, then continues existing normally. For example, suppose our survivor were still alive – here and now, with us. Even if the disaster happened again, he would experience a different viewpoint – the other side of the strip, connected but distinct. No matter how similar we seem, he and I are two different people, and the destruction of his _Typhoon_ isn't the same event as... whatever happens to ours."

Sonic broke in at this point, eager as always to make progress. "How do we get out of this loop, exactly?"

Tails sighed. "That's just it. I don't know how it could be done, or whether we ought to try it at all. The only way to break the cycle is to create another iteration – a new twist in the loop – and change how the events play out. The problem is, there's no guarantee of success. At least one loop has already happened by now, and we still have no idea what our response should be. In order to change the outcome, someone along the way has to realize what's going on and deliberately do something other than what they would have done otherwise – which is harder than it sounds, because 'otherwise' you might have tried the same plan." The kitsune frowned, thinking hard. "The time-travel event is probably the keystone of the whole thing. Prevent that from happening, and you recreate the first iteration and close the loop."

"Sounds simple enough," Sonic commented, folding his arms in what Tails recognized as immense, concealed relief.

"Except you're still facing whatever the time-travel was originally supposed to accomplish," Amy pointed out. "Surviving a battle with the Metarex, for instance."

Silence reigned for a period while everyone tried to digest the complex web of speculation. Knuckles broke it first. "So... what's the plan?"

"I'm really not sure," Tails admitted, and, anticipating their questions, elaborated. "We don't know exactly how the next few hours are going to go. Forget 'exactly'; we're going in just as blind as we would have anyway. No matter what we decide, it may still continue the cycle."

"In that case," Chris replied, drawing looks of mild surprise after nearly half an hour without speaking, "we should probably keep following the distress signal. We don't know of any reason to avoid it, and our goal from before hasn't changed."

His suggestion struck Tails as a stroke of genius. The simple practicality of it, how it neatly bypassed the labyrinthine logic of the Möbius cycle, the calming certainty that it was not, _could_ not be, a backfiring time-traveler's plan – it had been the obvious solution all along. How had he missed it?

"I think that's an excellent idea," the captain replied. On that note of closure, Tails turned around, took his seat, and resumed his inspection of the holographic _Scarship_.

The crew exchanged a few silent messages of uncertainty, but they eventually did the same. Everyone had misgivings, but no matter how they looked at it, Chris had found the only answer that led to any decision at all. As a result, the bridge fell silent once again, broken only by the beeping of computer consoles and the hum of the engine.


	6. Chapter 6: Pursuit

Chapter 6 –Pursuit

Tails was worried, and understandably so. No doubt the rest of the crew were feeling the same way. He didn't blame them; knowing that their decisions in the next few hours would decide their fate was more than enough to make anyone anxious. But for Tails there was more to it, things he hadn't told the others about the situation they might be in.

In some ways, people were no different than any other forms of matter: if a certain person was put into exactly the same situation twice with exactly the same past experience each time, he or she would react in exactly the same way. Because of this, it was impossible to alter a mobius complex in any way, which meant their fate might already be sealed. He went over and over the problem in his mind, but always arrived at the same conclusion: they had to proceed under the assumption that they could stop the disaster from happening, and hope they were right.

The next few hours were some of the tensest that the crew had experienced on this voyage. Hardly anyone spoke; all of them were deep in thought about what was to come. This long silence was ended by Chris's voice informing them that they were drawing close to their destination. Tails considered for a moment, then replied: "Take us out of warp." The _Typhoon_ slowed gradually using a pair of engines that functioned as brakes. While this was going on, Tails turned to Cosmo. "Is there anything nearby?"

She shook her head. "No planets within range of the scanners. There is a star system marked on our charts, but it's several days' travel from here. Oh, wait, here's something…" She examined the screen for a moment. "According to this, there's a group of starships coming from the direction of the nearby system. They just came within range of our scanners."

"How many are there?" Tails asked. He was hit by a sudden realization. "Do you think they might be the same ones we saw before?"

"I can't tell at this distance," she replied, shaking her head again. "If we can get closer, I might be able to identify them."

"Then let's try and intercept them," Tails said to the room at large. "I'll send you their location, Chris." He did so, and in minutes the _Typhoon_ was on its way. It took them about ten minutes before they had the ships in visual range. Tails magnified the image and showed it on the viewer.

"Metarex," Amy said simply, confirming what they could all see. The heavily armored ships with their distinctive overlapping armor plates and dark metallic coloring were easy to recognize. They were fast and powerful, and their hulls could be very difficult to penetrate. As far as they knew, the ships themselves had no weaknesses; the only way to defeat one was to lure its pilot into making a false move. This was very difficult to do; usually, it was best to run.

"This is strange," Amy remarked, frowning at the screen. She tapped a few keys, and a diagram appeared on the viewer over the previous image. It showed the starships as small arrows and gave a good view of their positions. "Look at this," she continued, pointing. "I've never seen ships fly like that before. They're moving really fast, but they're not in formation. There's no frontal guard, no fighters around the outside, nothing. They're just flying randomly. It's almost like they're running from something."

"They certainly look like they've been through a fight," Sonic commented. Sure enough, the fleet was made up of about fifty-odd ships in various degrees of disrepair. Many of their hulls carried the telltale scores left by laser fire.

_Look at that,_ Tails thought. _Whatever lasers made those gashes cut right through those ships' armor. Not even the Sonic Driver could do something like that!_

Tails' musings were interrupted by a new burst of activity on the viewscreen. As the fleet of Metarex starships drew level with the _Typhoon_, a hail of red laser fire pierced into their midst. Here and there, light flared against the blackness of space, and the remainder of the ships scattered to avoid the onslaught. Seconds later, the source of the attack was revealed: an armada of gleaming red starships, hundreds strong, in close pursuit of the Metarex fleet. Tails gasped as he realized who the newcomers were. Their ships were the same ones they had seen just hours before, torn apart and flung across time and space by some unknown force. This new arrival carried with it a strong sense of foreboding for the crew of the _Typhoon_; they all perceived that disaster was close at hand.

As the smoke cleared, the silver-and-gold Metarex battleships regrouped. At what was evidently a signal from their leader, the fleet banked to the left as the armada readied a second volley. More lines of red, more explosions, and once again the fleet broke apart. A few broke ranks and fled back the way they had come, apparently hoping to escape notice; these were picked off by shots from the crimson starships.

"Looks like the Metarex bit off more than they could chew with this planet," Amy remarked. "It just goes to show what happens when you get overconfident."

"We need to help them," Tails said to the room at large. "Chris, take us within range of the laser cannons. Cosmo, see if you can gain access to either side's comm. channels. Cream, shields up at maximum. We're going in." The _Typhoon_'s engines ignited once again, putting them on a direct intercept course with the Metarex fleet. Even as they came within a few thousand feet of them, they didn't seem to notice, so preoccupied were they with avoiding their pursuers, who by now were launching a third volley. The _Typhoon_ was ignored as it slowly moved into firing position. Tails took control of the weapon systems and armed the starboard laser cannons, angling the ship to give them the best possible line of fire. He aimed the six turrets into the heart of the fleet and lifted the trigger cap. "Starboard laser cannons, all fire!" he ordered into the microphone, and pressed the trigger.

If the _Typhoon_ itself didn't get their attention, being fired upon certainly did. The six lines of yellow light struck the hulls of the nearest Metarex ships, causing them to swerve away wildly. Unfortunately, the beams did little more than give away their position, and they were soon met with a hail of lasers in return. Chris swung the ship away, but not soon enough; the _Typhoon_ shook with the force of several impacts, knocking several of the crew out of their seats.

"Everyone okay?" Tails asked as he struggled to his feet. "Are we damaged?"

Cosmo stood and made her way back to her console across the still-swaying floor of the bridge. When she reached it, she sighed with relief. "No damage anywhere on the ship. The shields held up fine."

Tails also returned to his seat, staring at the Metarex ships as the _Typhoon_ pulled away. As he watched, a fourth attack came from their pursuers, destroying several of them. _How are they doing that!?_ Tails wondered, amazed.

As if in answer to his unspoken question, Amy spoke up. "I've analyzed the red ships' weaponry, and I think we can damage the Metarex with our own cannons. They're using low-frequency light, near-infrared. Melts right through their armor."

Tails nearly smacked himself in the forehead. Almost no one used red lasers anymore, so it would make sense for the Metarex to armor themselves against everything else. "I'm going to try to reprogram the laser cannons to fire that kind of light," he told the bridge crew. "This could take some time."

"I don't think we have time, Tails," Cosmo spoke up. "Look."

He did, and knew immediately what she meant. A group of three Metarex battleships had detached itself from the main fleet and was tailing the _Typhoon_. His eyes widened. They had their back to their pursuers, and with the laser cannons useless against the battleships' armor, they were practically defenseless. Until Tails got the lasers reprogrammed, they had only one option. "Chris, get us out of here!"


	7. Chapter 7: A Common Goal

**Sorry for the delay on this chapter; school is getting ready to start,** **so expect the updates to slow down quite a bit from here on. This is the first real action part of the story, so please review to give me your opinions.**

* * *

Chapter 7 – A Common Goal

The _Typhoon_ swung its bow around, pointing away from the advancing ships and out toward space. The engines lit themselves, accelerating them forward. Their speed increased steadily as Chris pushed the engines to their limits, but the Metarex always seemed to be gaining. Tails worked frantically, his fingers flying across the keyboard, trying to prepare his ship for battle. If he finished in time, they might stand a chance against their pursuers, but until then they were sitting targets.

All at once, the _Typhoon_ was shaken by the force of several successive blasts. Yellow beams arced past them on either side. "We've been fired upon!" Amy informed them needlessly. "The shield broke down around the edges, and they hit us on our rear stabilizers. Nothing important was damaged, thank goodness."

"Got it!" Tails exclaimed. "Alright, turn the ship around and prepare to broadside!" The _Typhoon_'s engines shut down and others ignited, exposing its left side in full view of the Metarex battleships. Light flared from somewhere within their armor, and once more a storm of lasers emerged from their cannons. "Roll right!" Tails ordered. Chris did so without question; the starship leaned suddenly to the right, narrowly avoiding the second volley. As the _Typhoon_ continued its rotation, Tails once again armed the laser cannons. Just as the Metarex ships came into view, upside-down and on the bridge crew's right, he gave the order: "Starboard laser cannons, all fire!"

Once more the captain pressed the trigger, and once more they unleashed a hail of laser fire upon their enemies. This time, though, it was not yellow, but a deep, crimson red. The beams pierced into the hulls of their targets, ripping through their inner workings. One was hit directly; it exploded in a blaze of orange light before the laser was even finished passing through it. Another foresaw the attack and swerved away; a beam struck on of its engines, and it was unable to alter course as it careened into one of its fellows, trailing smoke.

"Yes!" Tails cried out, punching the air. He settled back into his seat as the _Typhoon_ righted itself. "Alright, let's give these Metarex something to remember us by. Chris, you're in charge of the laser cannons. Keep 'em armed and ready to fire." He took control of the _Typhoon_ and sent them speeding back toward the fleet. As they flew, Tails spoke to Cosmo. "Have you got access to their comm. channel yet?"

"Just a moment…" she said without looking up. "I'm in. I'll turn the volume up so we can all hear it." She tapped a key, and metallic voices began to echo through the speakers.

"Crimsons are commencing seventh volley of laser fire. Battlegroups Omega and Epsilon are completely destroyed, and several others have sustained heavy casualties." "Enough of this! Battlegroups Alpha, Lambda, and Iota, reverse course and engage the enemy at close range. Gamma, Omicron, and Sigma, close around the flagship. It must be protected at any cost!" "Acknowledged, moving to engage…" "Acknowledged, closing formation…"

Three groups of ships detached from the fleet; the rest remained behind, forming a protective barrier to the rear of one that they could only assume was the flagship. The attacking battlegroups looped around and charged the crimson armada, coming in from three different directions. Their aggression evidently came as a surprise to their targets; this time, the Metarex ships were not the only ones to ignite the sky. They drove through the frontal defense and pierced into the heart of the armada, leaving a trail of rubble in their wake. Red and yellow laser fire traced a luminescent web across space, destroying anything careless enough to wander through its strands. The three Metarex battlegroups, evidently satisfied with the level of destruction they had caused, split and exploded out of the armada's flank, quickly making their way out of missile range.

"Battlegroup Iota, reporting. Attack run 1 highly successful, minimal casualties." "Battlegroup Alpha, same condition." "Battlegroup Lambda, same condition." "Commencing attack run 2…"

As the three formations moved into position for a second assault, Tails altered course, making for the nearest group. The formation was comprised of eighteen ships; from the way they were arranged, two others had already been destroyed. The _Typhoon_'s captain carefully maneuvered his ship into firing position, keeping out of view of the Metarex pilots. When at last the ship was perfectly lined up, Tails gave the order: "Fire!"

More red beams burst from their cannons, tearing into the nearest enemy ships. Almost immediately, several voices emanated from Cosmo's speakers.

"Argh! We're hit!" "Where did that come from?" "It's them! Scarship's destroyers!" "Battlegroup Lambda, we're under attack!" "Break! Now!" The Metarex ships scattered in every direction, trying to get out of the _Typhoon_'s line of fire. The other two groups, meanwhile, had begun their second attack run. The crimson ships were more prepared this time, and both sides sustained heavy damage. The outlying ships took advantage of the distraction caused by the _Typhoon_ and converged on Battlegroup Lambda, closing off their escape routes and catching them in a deadly crossfire. Orange light filled the bridge crew's vision. When it cleared, Tails nearly cried out at the sight of three Metarex ships parked right off the _Typhoon_'s bow.

Before the ships had a chance to fire, however, lines of red arced across from the side, reducing the silver craft to rubble. The bridge crew turned to see a few of the crimson starships a little way off to the left. A new voice reached their ears, this time from Tails' console. This one was definitely not Metarex; it was strong, determined, and very much alive. "We normally don't trust strangers easily, but from what we've seen, you've earned it. Whoever you are, we've got your back."

Tails spoke into the microphone, trying to sound professional. "We appreciate your help. Can you tell us what's going on?"

"These accursed aliens have stolen the very life out of our planet. Naturally, we went after them to take it back. We've been after them for several days now."

Tails' eyes widened. He exchanged a glance with Cosmo; she had heard it as clearly as he had, and she knew what it meant. "Guys, the Metarex have taken another Planet Egg!"

Before anyone could respond, more voices were heard from Cosmo's console. "Battlegroup Iota, we've lost visual on Lambda." "Battlegroup Alpha, Lambda are not responding to hails." "Confirmed, Battlegroup Lambda were destroyed in enemy crossfire." "Battlegroup Alpha, requesting backup." "Acknowledged, Battlegroup Omicron en route." Twenty ships broke off of the cluster around the flagship, now very far away, and turned back toward the scene of the confrontation. As they did, the other two battlegroups passed by, having completed a second attack run. They met at a point some distance out and began to make their way back toward the armada.

"We need to take out the Metarex flagship," Tails told the bridge crew. "That, or somehow get on board and steal the Planet Egg."

Hearing this, the pilot on the comm. spoke up. "We've already made three attack runs on the main fleet. Every time, we lost a full battlegroup to their defense line. I highly doubt one ship could make it through, even one as well-made as yours."

"We weren't planning on going in alone," Tails replied simply.

"I see your point." There was a pause, then the pilot spoke again. "You should speak with the admiral about this; he's the one in charge of fleet operations. Wait just a moment; I'll put you through to him." The voice fell silent, to be replaced by static; the feed had been cut off. Seconds later, Cosmo informed them of an incoming hail.

"Put it on the viewscreen," Tails told her. A panel appeared on the screen, partially obscuring the view of the outside. On it was a video feed, apparently from the command ship. The feed showed a humanoid hedgehog, presumably the admiral, who bore a striking resemblance to those on Tails' and the others' home planet. The quills on his head, like many of species', were longer than those on the rest of his body and naturally grouped together into spikes. His fur was a startlingly vivid shade of indigo, and contrasted sharply with his amber-colored eyes. There was no visible evidence of his rank, but he still carried an air of command. Even across the comm. link, he was a little intimidating.

"I am Admiral Kairos, commanding officer of the fourth fleet and captain of the _Sargasso_." He pronounced his name "kye-rose," rolling the 'r' slightly.

"Captain Miles Prower of the _Blue Typhoon_," Tails replied quickly, then cut right to the chase. "We plan to take on the Metarex flagship, and we need help. Lots of it."

"So I've heard." The admiral was silent for a moment, apparently in deep thought. "I might be willing to go with this, except that we've already lost over fifty ships and hundreds of crewmembers in failed attack runs. The enemy's defensive line is too powerful; it would be suicide."

Tails had expected this. "We have an idea for how to break through. It'll be risky; there's a possibility that you could lose several more ships. But if we succeed, we may be able to take back what the Metarex have stolen." The admiral remained silent, his expression unreadable. "You have to realize, if they escape with your Planet Egg, your world and everything on it will die. We have a common goal here, but it will take both of our efforts to achieve it.

"Hmm…" The admiral sat back in his seat, thinking. "Very well, I'll hear this plan of yours. If it sounds like a plausible option… I might be willing to assist you."

Tails wasted no time. "Okay, here's how this is going to work…"


	8. Chapter 8: The Element of Surprise

**Contradictory to what I said before, this update didn't take long at all, mainly because I had it planned out beforehand. The rest of the chapters will probably take a lot longer to complete than this one.**

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Chapter 8 – The Element of Surprise

The admiral listened intently as Tails outlined his plan, posing questions from time to time to clarify some detail or ask how they would respond to a certain complication. When at last he had the full story, he sat back in his seat again. After a short silence, he spoke.

"This plan of yours sounds like it might work to me. Very well, I'll put you in temporary command of the fleet…"

"Thank you for-," Tails started to say, but stopped when the indigo hedgehog on the screen raised his hand.

"But only as long as everything runs smoothly," he finished. "If any part of this goes awry, I'm taking over."

Tails sighed; he could hardly have expected any better. "Very well; we can begin once everyone is ready."

* * *

A few minutes later, the Terroran fleet was in position. The _Typhoon_ was at its head, the front line a few hundred meters behind it. The outer reaches of the armada were arranged into multiple concentric circles that grew progressively bigger, forming a cone-like shape comprised of three battlegroups. Within and behind this outer defense, the rest of the crimson starships were clustered, grouped tightly together around the _Sargasso_ and extending far out into space behind it. This formation was intended to hide their numbers, making them look like a small force from afar. Far out in space, three Metarex battlegroups were positioned directly in their path. Even farther, hidden from view by the silver ships, were the flagship and its escorts, now comprised of only forty ships. Even so, the Terroran fleet would need the element of surprise if they were to avoid great loss of life.

Inside the _Typhoon_'s bridge, Tails and the others were performing a final systems check. Each of them called out in turn as he or she ascertained that his or her area of the ship was online. "Main engines are fully operational and ready for use." "Scanners are operating at full capacity." "Comm. systems are online." "Weapons systems are fully charged."

"Starship _Sargasso_, all allied battlegroups have reported in," came Admiral Kairos's voice through the comm. channel, this time from Tails' console. "The fleet is fully operational and ready for action."

"Good," Tails replied. "All ships, accelerate to attack speed." The engines of the _Typhoon_ and the rest of the armada ignited, launching them forward. The formation held its shape as it rapidly closed the distance between itself and the three Metarex battlegroups. As they came, their enemies divided into three formations and split apart, coming in from three directions as they had before. Tails had expected this; in fact, this attack pattern was a vital part of their strategy.

"Defensive line, split off and engage the enemy battlegroups at close range," he ordered. "Rear guard, take their place," The conical shell enclosing the bulk of the armada condensed itself into three smaller formations, each accelerating toward one of the attacking Metarex battlegroups. The move worked perfectly; the enemy ships were halted by the attack, leaving a clear hole through which the rest of the Terroran fleet now passed. Ships from the rear spread out and moved forward, reforming the outer defense. They now had a clear, if distant, view of the Metarex command ship. They gradually drew nearer to their target; either they had not been noticed, or, perhaps more ominously, their enemy had no interest in fleeing.

A few minutes later, the crew of the _Typhoon_ were able to make out the details of the Metarex ships. About forty ship had formed a defensive line around the rear of the flagship, partially obscuring it from view. The majority of them were silver, but two, which were about twice their size, had armor colored a dark burnished gold. These, presumably, were the battlegroup commanders. Behind the rear guard was one that could only be the flagship. There were too many other ships around it to make out details, but they could tell that it was navy blue, and very large.

At this point, the Metarex comm. feed, which had been oddly silent for the duration of the attack, came to life. "Battlegroups Gamma and Sigma, reverse course and open fire!" The flagship's rear guard suddenly turned on the spot and, still coasting backward, unleashed a hail of yellow laser fire upon the incoming fleet. The attack was unexpected, and a few Terroran ships were destroyed. Despite this, the formation as a whole held together.

"Return fire!" Tails ordered, and the defensive line did just that. The conical formation, apart from being an effective tactic to distract attention from the main fleet, also gave every ship a clear line of fire. Red lines lanced forward, decimating the enemy guard. When the rubble cleared, only about half of them remained. Under Tails' direction, the defensive line accelerated and converged on the remaining ships. Meanwhile, the rest of the armada exploded outward, revealing their true numbers at last, and spreading out to pursue their main target.

The flagship, now that it could be seen properly, was truly a sight to behold. It was gargantuan; easily more than ten times the size of the _Typhoon_, it filled the viewscreen even at this distance. Even Admiral Kairos, who had been through more than his share of battles, couldn't help but be awed by its scale. The ship was armored with a multitude of navy blue, triangular plates, each one overlapping those behind it and sporting a bright red tip. Like many of the Metarex dreadnoughts they had seen in the past, this one had several long, spiked projections extending backward. These rotated slowly, somehow providing propulsion to the ship. This particular starship had four: one each on a pair of spires extending outward to both sides, and two on a second, longer spire on the bottom. The head of the ship was still out of sight, hidden by a ring of protruding plates near the front.

Tails broke out of his initial stunned silence and spoke into the comm. "All ships, spread out and surround the flagship from behind. Aim for the spots between its armor plates. Fire!"

The armada fired again, red beams striking the dark plates of the flagship. Almost immediately, they heard more Metarex comm. chatter. "We've been fired upon!" "What? How did they break through the rear guard?" "The fleet was larger than originally estimated. They were able to overwhelm Battlegroups Gamma and Sigma." "Enemy forces commencing second volley." "Enough! Turn this ship around right now, and give these rebels a taste of our power!" "Acknowledged, extending primary weapon batteries…"

The flagship rotated slowly, seemingly oblivious to the continued bombardment of the Terroran armada. As it turned to face them, something could be seen emerging from within its armor. One by one, the ships ceased fire as their pilots realized what was about to happen. Tails and his fellow crewmembers stared on in awe and terror at the behemoth before them. The front of the ship had been styled into a vague impression of a face, with a pair of crystalline, orblike 'eyes' and a sharp, hooked prow. Around this, the first three rows of plates protruded outward more than the others, making them look like a mane. These plates, or rather what was emerging from under them, were the reason for everyone's fear. From beneath each plate, a huge battery of laser cannons had emerged, turning the entire front of the starship into an enormous array of weapons. Tails could only think of two words to say, and they came out as little more than a whisper: "Oh my…"

Admiral Kairos was the first to come to his senses. He shouted into the comm., startling everyone else out of their paralysis: "Everybody, break formation now!" Tails came back to the present just in time to see the laser cannons light up from within. An instant later, the dreadnought hurled an ocean of light at the armada, scattering them in every direction. Some of the ships, the _Typhoon_ and _Sargasso_ among them, were trapped by the yellow beams; they became the focus of the barrage. In the ensuing confusion, the _Typhoon_ was struck.

"Shields are down on the port side!" Amy informed them. "If we don't get out of here right now, we're done for!"

Tails took control and began to guide his damaged ship out of the fray. He could tell something was wrong, though; he couldn't get the _Typhoon_ to fly a straight course. He did his best to use the turning jets to compensate, but it slowed them down considerably. Eventually, the yellow beams began to thin out, and they managed to break free into open space.

"I need a damage report," Tails told them, a little out of breath. "They hit something, and I think it might be important."

"What they hit was the port engine," Amy answered him. Tails sighed; he had been afraid of that. "It did a fair amount of damage to the outer casing, but it looks like it'll still run. But you can't use more than 75 of maximum power, or else the starboard engine could overheat from the strain." Tails groaned; now the _Typhoon_ was crippled, on top of everything else!

"So they slowed us down a bit," Sonic said unexpectedly. "We've been in worse scrapes than this before, haven't we?"

"He's right," Cosmo spoke up. "As long as the Terrorans haven't given up, we can't either."

"I'm glad to hear that," said another voice unexpectedly. Tails looked down at his console and saw that Admiral Kairos had reestablished the comm. link. The barrage from the flagship had stopped – temporarily – and the remains of the Terroran armada were regrouping around the _Typhoon_. Starship _Sargasso_ was at their head, carbon-stained but none the worse for wear. "We lost quite a few ships in that attack," the admiral continued, "but fortunately, most of us escaped. We have seven remaining battlegroups here and five more en route from the battles against the defense lines. I'd say we stand a decent chance against one ship, however powerful. I'll let you lead the attack."

Tails smiled and nodded. "All ships accelerate to attack speed. Let's bring down this behemoth."


	9. Chapter 9: Stalemate

**I've just started high school, so updates are going to take longer than before. On the plus side, this chapter is a bit longer than the others. Hopefully it will keep you alive until I manage to get the next one posted. And, as always, be sure to give me your thoughts in a review.**

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Chapter 9 – Stalemate

The Terroran fleet surged forward on a direct intercept course with the Metarex dreadnought, which was still fleeing backward away from them. Rather than unleashing all of its energy at once as it had before, the flagship fired continuously, keeping its pursuers on the defensive. The Terrorans fought back with sheer numbers, spreading out in all directions and forcing the ship to divide its firepower. As powerful as it was, the dreadnought could not keep all of its foes in range at once, and some were able to make it around to the rear. There, they set about making repeated attack runs on any and all chinks in its armor. The problem was, there didn't seem to be many of these; there was armor even between the scales, and it was surprisingly resistant even to the red lasers. The flagship turned slowly, trying to get them within range, but the Terroran ships were too fast to keep up with. Thus, the two warring factions were at a stalemate, one that would only be broken when one side either ran out of power, or decided to tip the scales.

As it turned out, the Metarex would do just that. A voice on the hacked comm. channel clued the _Typhoon_ and its allies in to the danger: "Fighter squadrons one through fifteen, prepare to deploy. After launch, proceed to the rear of the flagship and engage the attacking forces at close range." At these words, something around the flagship moved. A moment later, it became obvious what had happened: over a hundred Metarex fighter craft had been deployed. There was no obvious exit point; they seemed to emerge from beneath the flagship's armor plates. Each fighter was small by itself – only about a tenth the size of the _Typhoon_ – and armed with a single belly-mounted laser cannon. A smaller version of the large, spiked propulsion spires on the flagship protruded from the rear, whirling rapidly. Though the power of each one was negligible, in these numbers they were a force to be reckoned with.

The newly emerged fighters assembled into groups of ten, each squadron shaping itself into a simple double-v formation. They descended upon the attacking forces, sowing confusion among their enemies. In the rush to defend themselves, the Terroran ships allowed the intensity of the assault to lessen.

"Don't get distracted," came Admiral Kairos's voice. "Concentrate your attack on the flagship. Help is on the way." Confused by his last statement, the crew of the _Blue Typhoon_ turned to look and saw immediately what he meant. Off in the distance, still a long way behind but gaining fast, was the rest of the Terroran armada that had been left behind during the attack on the flagship's defenses. As they came within weapon range, they unleashed a synchronized volley of laser fire upon the flagship, blinding the pilots and causing their counterattack to go awry. Moving in perfect unison, the five battlegroups separated, passing around the flagship and catching the Metarex fighters in a pincer maneuver. They passed over their enemies, raining down precise laser fire upon the fighters before blasting back out into space. Two more attacks like this, and all that remained of their enemy was the flagship and a few burned-out husks floating in space.

The new arrivals rounded the side of the flagship one last time, joining the rest of the armada at a (relatively) safe distance. There, during a second lull in the enemy laser fire, they took time to plan the next attack run.

"The last two attack runs have been highly successful," Admiral Kairos explained to the fleet. He was pacing back and forth on the _Sargasso_'s bridge, and the camera swiveled to keep him in view. "This is largely due to the fact that, with the help of Captain Prower and the rest of his ship's crew, we have so far been able to anticipate our enemies' tactics." He stopped and turned to face the screen. "We don't have that advantage now. We won't be able to counter their attacks as we could before, nor will we stand a chance in a direct contest of power." The admiral resumed his pacing once again. "So far as we can tell, there are no enemy ships within radar range, save the one before you. That means our enemy is only defended by its own weaponry. Don't get me wrong, I use the word 'only' in the loosest sense possible. I needn't say more; you've all seen what those lasers can do."

An uneasy murmur filled the comm. channels, only to fall silent seconds later when the admiral continued his briefing. "But, before I frighten anyone too badly, we have our own advantages. Our ships are easily fast enough to outmaneuver that behemoth, and everything has to have a weak point somewhere. Your job," and here he looked directly into the camera and into the eyes of every pilot in the fleet, "is to find that weak point. Once we're through the brunt of the attack, spread out and surround the flagship. Fire on anything that looks like a gap, and let us know if you do some damage. Good luck, everyone, and may fortune follow us." The admiral returned to his seat and closed all of the video links except the one to the _Typhoon_. "Your move, Captain Prower."

Tails nodded, still not completely used to people calling him 'captain,' and spoke into the microphone. "All ships, commence attack run three. Keep a close formation, but be ready to break on my signal." The _Typhoon_ surged forward, followed by its accompanying battlegroup and the rest of the Terroran fleet. The Metarex flagship was just completing its slow, 180-degree rotation; the laser batteries tilted forward, locking onto their targets. Golden light flared within their black depths.

"Now!" Tails shouted. The formation broke, and each of the twelve battlegroups made for a different spot. Just as they did, a huge blast of concentrated laser fire passed straight through the area they had just vacated. After a few seconds of recharging, the cannons fired again, swiveling to track the crimson ships until they passed out of range. Each of the twelve battlegroups made for a different spot, raining down lasers on the flagship's navy blue armor in search of that elusive chink in the defenses. Unfortunately, their target was well armored, and none of their attacks did more than discolor the surface.

"Prepare the rest of our ships!" shouted someone on the Metarex comm. channel. "Get a pod ready in case we need to jettison the Planet Egg! Where are those fighter pilots!?" "All remaining fighter squadrons have deployed." "Good. See that they don't fail like the others." "Acknowledged, revising attack strategy…"

More Metarex fighters began to emerge from within the command ship's armor. These, unlike the first, immediately accelerated and shot out into space, banking around and charging the Terroran ships at full speed. A group of them made for the _Typhoon_'s battlegroup and opened fire. Two outlying ships drifted off from their fellows and were immediately targeted. "We're taking heavy-," came the voice of one of the pilots, before the transmission was cut off. Tails looked and saw that the bridge of one had been struck. Out of control, the ship continued on its present course, impacting the flagship's armor in a blaze of orange light.

"Break right, then double back and fire," Tails told the other pilots. They did so, and the fighters took the bait, turning right with them and attempting to cut them off.

The ruse worked perfectly; the Terroran ships U-turned and came back the other way, and found their foes directly in their line of fire. The lasers did the rest.

About ten minutes into the barrage, one of the other battlegroup commanders informed the fleet of a discovery. "Battlegroup Mariana, we found it! We found a weak point!" That got everyone's attention. "It's the laser outputs. If you manage to hit one, you can damage the inner workings. You might even get lucky and take out the entire battery in one shot. There is one issue, though. When the lasers are recharging, a metal shutter closes to protect the opening. So, you can only do damage…"

"…When the lasers are firing," Admiral Kairos finished with him. "That could complicate things a bit."

"Exactly. So, you need to find some way of distracting their aim while you go in for the attack. 'Cause unless you get real close, you'll have a hard time landing a hit."

"Jolly Roger, Battlegroup Mariana," the admiral replied. "Everyone, you heard him. Let's take out those guns."

Calls of "Roger" and "Understood" were heard through the fleet-wide comm. link, seeming to echo as they were repeated over and over. All at once, every battlegroup pulled out into space and looped around, coming in on a new attack vector: straight at the primary weapon batteries. The crimson ships swarmed over the face of the Metarex dreadnought, looking for a way to penetrate the iron curtain before them. After several charges in which they were forced to peel off before landing a hit, Tails was starting to get frustrated. "How are we supposed to do damage?" he asked to thin air. "We can't get a straight shot without being right in the path of the laser beam, and our shields can't take a hit from something that powerful." Unexpectedly, Cream raised her hand hesitantly. "What is it, Cream?" Tails asked her, somewhat taken aback at having his rhetorical question answered.

"You told me about lasers once," she began slowly. "Didn't you say there are a bunch of lenses inside that make the light go in a straight line?" Tails nodded. "Well, couldn't we use them to make our laser go inside?"

"Cream's got a point," Amy spoke up as Tails opened his mouth to argue. "What if we fired from one side, but we hit the curve of the lens? The angle of the glass would direct our laser straight into the heart of the device where there's no armor at all. They would also focus the entire beam almost to a single point, which would make it way more powerful."

"That's…" Tails started, then paused. "…Not a bad idea. Thanks, you two."

"You're welcome," Cream replied with her usual politeness.

Tails turned his attention to the rest of the battlegroup. "All right, everybody, new strategy. I trust you've all figured out it'll be impossible to get a straight shot at these things without getting hit yourself. We think that we might be able to use the weapons' components to our advantage. Now, if you have zoom-in sights on your weapons, take a good look at the laser outputs. Right below the metal shutters, you should be able to see a lens focusing the laser blast to travel in a straight line. We think that, if you hit that from the right angle, it and the others inside will carry your shot right into the middle of the weapon, dealing a ton of damage. So, how should we do this?"

Tails and the rest of his battlegroup spent the next few minutes outside of accurate laser range, discussing how best to go about getting a clean shot. They ended up with the now eighteen-strong formation divided into two groups: one under the _Typhoon_, and the other under a starship called the _Riptide_. Once the two formations knew their jobs, they made their way back into the combat zone.

"There's our target," Tails told everyone. He pointed, before remembering that the other pilots couldn't see him. "First row, directly to the right of the eye. Remember, don't be stingy with your lasers; fire as many shots as you can without losing accuracy. And keep an eye out in case some of the other batteries target you." With that, the two groups separated, the _Typhoon_ moving off to the right and the _Riptide_ heading for the back of the ship. Several batteries came to life as the latter passed overhead, including the one they were after. Moving in perfect sync so as not to upset their timing, the two formations turned and began to follow their assigned courses.

The _Typhoon_ was spotted first. Several batteries on the first row opened fire, their target among them. As they came close to passing the battery in question, the _Riptide_'s group appeared. They flew directly over the target cluster, raining down crimson laser fire. They weren't directly in the path of the lasers, but they were close enough that at least one shot found its mark. The beam shot through the series of lenses inside and pierced into the power module underneath. The resulting explosion took out not only the attached laser but also many of the others around it. With this done, both groups peeled off; behind them, something else ignited, causing a much bigger inferno that consumed the entire battery. "One weapon cluster down," Tails reported to the _Sargasso_.

"We saw," the admiral replied. "That was a pretty effective attack strategy. Some of the other groups figured that out, too, and are putting it to use as we speak. Let's keep this up until we've got them completely disarmed."

"Roger, admiral," Tails replied. He steered the _Typhoon_ back down toward the Metarex flagship, the rest of the battlegroup behind it. "We're going in low and fast," he called to the other pilots. "Fire at any spot that looks like a good target. And keep your shields up; they won't save you from a direct hit, but they'll buy you a few seconds if you're being fired upon." On that note, he led them down into the fray.

The battlegroup stayed close together, being careful not to lose sight of one another as they skimmed over the face of the flagship. A furious but silent battle raged around them; explosions were everywhere; chunks and shards of metal flew in all directions. One group, comprised of just nine ships flying in an X shape, passed across their field of view, flying on a direct course straight into the fire of two laser batteries. The formation dodged and weaved to avoid the yellow barrage, then split into two as it neared its targets. Each side picked one cluster and charged at it, opening fire before peeling off. Both batteries were consumed by orange flames, throwing up a huge cloud of debris that bombarded the shields of the _Typhoon_'s battlegroup.

The fifteen ships continued on their low flight path, raining down red beams as they passed overhead. They didn't know how many batteries they destroyed or even if any of their shots hit home; in the chaos around them, it was impossible to tell. All they knew was that by the time they finished their run, the flagship was in bad shape. Half of the front surface was ablaze; the ring of weapon clusters now resembled a red-hot mantle. The laser fire ceased suddenly, and the Terroran armada withdrew to a safe distance.

"Offensive capabilities at 47 and falling," said a surprisingly calm voice on the Metarex comm. channel. "A substantial amount of armor was destroyed by the explosions." "How is that possible? I was told this ship was invincible!" "Evidently, your information is incomplete, captain." The last voice was one they had not heard before. Compared to the other Metarex, this one sounded almost alive. "It seems we underestimated the capabilities of the Terroran military. You are to send the Planet Egg ahead in a high-speed cargo pod, and remain behind to hold the fleet off for as long as possible. Under no circumstances are you to leave your current position until every last enemy ship is destroyed. Am I clear?" "Crystal, commander." "Good. You have permission to use the generator at your discretion. It needs a proper field test. Red Pine out."

The _Typhoon_'s bridge crew looked at one another, a multitude of questions running through their minds. Amy was the first to voice hers. "Who's Red Pine?"

"It sounds like a Metarex callsign," Sonic answered her. When they looked at him in slight surprise, he continued. "I remember Scarship mentioning a name kind of like that one – 'Lord Dark Oak,' I think. Maybe they're Metarex leaders."

Tails had only been half listening to the conversation. "What do you guys think he meant by 'the generator?' It sounded pretty important, like some kind of last-resort weapon or something."

"It could be any number of things," Amy replied, rather unhelpfully. At that moment, more voices were heard from the hacked comm. channel.

"The Planet Egg is stored and ready for transport." "Good. Don't deploy it yet; they'll just shoot it down. Instead… prepare to fire the graviton generator." "What is the target?" "Aim directly behind the enemy fleet." "That choice is not recommended. At that range, the flagship could be drawn in as well." "We have enough power to escape." "Are you aware that the graviton generator produces over…?" "You have your orders! Set target and fire when ready!" "Acknowledged, beginning firing sequence…"


	10. Chapter 10: One in a Million

**All right, I've been holding off long enough. It's time to answer some questions that I'm sure some of my readers are wondering about. The story is nearing its climax, and only the future can tell what will come of it.**

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Chapter 10 – One in a Million

Tails looked up from his console when the order to fire was given to see if everyone else on the bridge had heard. The looks on their faces left no doubt in his mind. Together, they looked out the right side of the viewscreen at the flagship to see what would happen. They never saw what the generator looked like; either it was so small they failed to notice it, or it was camouflaged in some way. Whatever the reason, they were unaware that it had activated until they began to experience its effects.

The first hint came from Cosmo. "Hey, something's wrong with the radar. A lot of debris off in the distance just disappeared."

Tails hurried over to look. "Are they jamming us?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so. It doesn't look like normal interference, and anyway it's coming from the other direction." She pulled up a three-dimensional onscreen model of the surrounding area. The flagship appeared on one side as a large point of light, and the Terroran fleet was shone as a crescent-shaped series of smaller points. "See this? There's debris everywhere except right in this spot." She pointed. Nothing was clear at first, but Tails soon saw what she meant. The surrounding space was peppered with uncounted pieces of metal, except for a large cone of emptiness that began directly behind the armada and extended all the way out to the edge of the map.

Amy had appeared behind Cosmo and was looking over her shoulder. "Now that's weird. It's almost like something's absorbing the radar waves."

Tails wasn't convinced. "But if something is creating a radar shadow, it ought to be right at the tip of that cone," he said, pointing, "but there's nothing the-" As he spoke, he turned to look out the left side of the viewscreen, and stopped in mid-sentence. While they had been talking, something had happened without their notice. Behind the fleet, focused as the pilots were on the flagship, something had formed in space. It was a sight that no known person had ever seen with their own eyes, a sight that terrified anyone who knew what they were seeing. No one knew exactly how they worked, but they had all heard of them: gigantic rifts in space that consumed everything they came into contact with, even light. The scientific community had a number of names for them, but to most people, they were called black holes.

As soon as Tails spotted it, he bolted up out of his seat and ran to the left side of the bridge to get a better view. He was soon joined by the rest of the crew. All of them stared, wide-eyed, at the spectacle before them. The black hole looked exactly as one might have pictured it: as if a gigantic, circular slice had been carved out of the starry background. Around it, the sky was weirdly distorted, as if they were looking at it through an oddly-shaped lens. All around them, pieces of rubble were being drawn toward the hole, and the Terroran fleet, still unaware of the situation, was being pulled in with it.

Sonic was the first to get his voice back. "Tails," he began with understandable nervousness, "you know about this stuff. What's the plan?"

"We have to get out of here, right now," he breathed. After a few more seconds of staring at the black hole, he came fully to his senses and dashed back to his console. As the rest followed suit, he seized the _Typhoon_'s controls, turning the ship's nose out into space. The engines fired, propelling the starship away at full speed. As they accelerated, Tails handed off control to Chris and re-open the comm. link to the _Sargasso_.

"Admiral, we need to retreat right now!" the fox told Admiral Kairos before he had a chance to speak. "There's a black hole behind us!"

"What are you talking – whoa!" he shouted, looking to his right in surprise. He grabbed a microphone from somewhere below the screen and spoke into it. "All ships retreat and regroup! We are under attack, I repeat, we are under attack!" The engines of every ship in the armada ignited, sending the fleet surging forward after the _Typhoon_. At first, it seemed as though they would make it. Then they began to lose speed.

"What's going on? Why are we slowing down?" Tails wondered aloud, looking around at the many gauges and readings on his console.

"Something's up with the hole," Amy answered. "We're getting farther away, but the gravity readings just keep getting stronger."

"The radar shadow is increasing in size," Cosmo spoke up. "Tails, I think the black hole is getting bigger!"

Tails' logical side rebelled. "But that's not possible! A black hole can only gain mass by drawing in other objects. There's nothing nearby that could cause that much of an increase in so short a time." Even as he said it, he realized what he had wrong. Black holes also shouldn't be able to pop up as quickly as this one had. The only solution was that this was not a black hole at all, but rather something else that acted like one. And that meant…

"The Metarex are controlling it," he finished out loud. The rest of them looked at him, uncomprehending. "This must be the graviton generator," he explained. He realized the implications of what he had just said, and smacked himself in the forehead. "Of course! The graviton generator! It works by producing gravitons – particles of gravitational force! This is the weapon they were talking about!"

"Wait, slow down," Sonic interrupted. "You're saying the Metarex made that!?"

"That would explain why the force isn't decreasing as we get farther away," Amy pointed out. "If it's generating the force artificially instead of using a mass to do it, it might not follow the normal laws of gravity."

At that moment, the generator redoubled its efforts to tow them in. The _Typhoon_ stalled out, its engine power equal to the attractive force. "We can't keep this up for long," Chris informed them. "We're already running at almost full impulse power, and with one of our engines damaged, we could burn out at any time."

"Just as long as it holds out longer than that generator's power supply," Tails replied. They waited, hanging motionless in space with the rest of the armada, hoping they could hold out long enough to survive this. It was then that the Metarex captain spoke again.

"What's wrong? Why aren't they being pulled in?" "The generator is running at full capacity. Our enemies are just barely able to equal its pull at this distance. We, however, have a much greater mass, and are facing the wrong way to counteract the pull." "Wait, you mean we're being drawn in?" "As I informed you, the target you chose was too close to allow for safe…" "Enough! As long as the enemy is unable to give chase, our mission can be carried out. Deploy the transport." "Acknowledged, transmitting your orders to launch bay 7…"

From far away, the crew of the _Typhoon_ saw something emerge from behind the Metarex flagship. Tails realized what it was with a jolt. "No, no, no, no!" he shouted, more to himself than anyone else. "Two hours of fighting and that Planet Egg's about to fly away right in front of our faces!" He started hitting keys, bringing up a sight for the frontal laser cannons. Sonic put his hand on the young fox's arm.

"Tails, you can't hit that thing from here!" he told him forcefully. "It's way out of range, there's no way…" He didn't have to say more; his words had hit home. Tails took his hand off the trigger and lowered it to his side, defeated.

"We can't just give up!" said a voice from their left. They turned to see that it was Cream, speaking for the first time in over an hour. She was looking defiantly across at them, her Chao companion, Cheese, hovering by her shoulder and mimicking her expression. "They need that Planet Egg to bring their world back to life. We have to at least try to hit it."

"Cream," Amy began carefully, "Sonic's right. That ship's more than twice the distance you can expect to hit it from. It would be a one-in-a-million shot."

"It's better than nothing," she replied. Turning back to her console, she brought up the same laser cannon controls Tails had just seconds ago. She didn't normally operate the _Typhoon_'s weaponry – she didn't like to bring harm to anyone, even the Metarex – but she knew how it was done. There was no one on that transport, just a Planet Egg in need of saving. She would feel no regrets about shooting it down. She looked intently at the screen, carefully lining up the targeting crosshair. Even at maximum zoom, the transport was barely more than a gold speck against the background, and the laser cannons, powerful as they were, were notoriously imprecise.

When at last the cannons were lined up, Cream pressed the trigger two times in quick succession. Two blasts were launched at the transport, one slightly behind the other. The first passed just to the left of the target, causing it to veer sharply to the right. This reaction was its undoing; it ended up swerving straight into the path of the second blast. The tiny craft disappeared into the yellow beam. At first, no one was sure what had happened. The light of the laser faded, and for a moment everything was dark.

Then a white glow flared where the transport had been. A cheer came through the fleet comm. channel as the pilots realized what had happened: the Planet Egg had been freed. Still shining with a brilliant, blue-tinged radiance, the crystal streaked off into the distance, heading back to its old planet. Admiral Kairos's face appeared on the main viewer.

"Captain Prower, you've just saved the life of everyone on our planet. The people of Terrora owe you their lives."

"Don't thank me," Tails replied modestly. "I was all set to give up because it was so far out of our range. It was my weapons officer who took the shot."

"Well, in that case, I commend him for his determination and his extraordinary sharpshooting skills."

Tails grinned inwardly at the admiral's words. He exchanged a glance with Cream, and realized what she planned to do. He remained silent as the young rabbit stood, garnering the admiral's full attention. "Thank you for your compliments," she replied with the utmost politeness. Amy and Cosmo both stifled chuckles; Sonic's was less skillfully concealed, making him sound as if he had just come close to choking on something.

Admiral Kairos raised an eyebrow at this. "Ah… it seems I was a little quick to judge. My apologies, young lady," he said respectfully.

* * *

"Warning. Foreign hack signal detected," said a mechanical voice on the bridge of the Metarex flagship. "Analyzing… signal is programmed to transmit our communications to an outside source. Initiating countermeasures…"

"How could this happen!?" the captain shouted furiously, banging his fist on his console. "How could they have possibly hit it from that range!? They're over three miles away!"

"It was a turn of good luck for them, something they could not normally have accomplished." The second speaker was his science officer, an ordinary Metarex infantry member with red-orange armor and a triangular, insectoid head.

"Inform Commander Red Pine that the mission has failed, and shut off the graviton generator."

There was a pause while the first lieutenant, another, blue-gray infantry member, worked its console with mechanical efficiency. After a moment, it looked up. "Error. System malfunction. I am unable to deactivate the generator."

"You what?" the captain asked, his voice dangerously slow.

"I am unable to…" it began.

"I heard what you said!" he roared, cutting it off. "What's the problem?"

"Unknown."

"Well, can we escape from the gravitational field?"

"Unlikely. In the time it would take to achieve the proper angle for escape, the ship would be drawn in past its capacity for power."

The captain banged his console again. "I can't believe this! They destroyed our fleet, they broke through our supposedly invulnerable defenses, and now they've maneuvered us into destroying ourselves!" there was a second pause. "Accelerate to full impulse speed."

"Acknowledged, full impulse," the drone replied. "If I may ask, what are your intentions?"

The captain laughed loudly, revealing a hint of madness. "If we can't escape, we might as well take as many as we can with us."

* * *

Neither Tails nor anyone else noticed that the feed from the Metarex fleet had been cut, and as a result they heard nothing of the conversation that had just occurred. No sound traveled in space, so they did not hear the gargantuan flagship's engines fire, nor have reason to look around it accelerated toward the Terroran armada. It was only when the dreadnought was almost upon them that anyone noticed it. The alarmed pilot called out to the rest of the fleet, but by then it was too late. There was no time to get out of the way, only to engage their shields in an attempt to protect their ships.

The flagship crashed into the center of the armada, scattering the crimson ships in every direction. The _Typhoon_ was among those that were struck head-on. The dreadnought pushed the smaller starship along for several seconds, sending multiple waves of concussive force through the semitransparent blue shield. The power drain was enormous. When the _Typhoon_ finally slid off of the 'face' of its attacker, the larger ship cruised right on past, sending the smaller one ricocheting off of an armor plate and into space. The impact threw everyone to the floor.

"What was that!?" said a voice from Tails' console. It was Knuckles down in the generator room, apparently shouting into the comm. panel. "Did we hit something?"

"Something hit us," Tails replied, struggling back into his seat. "The Metarex flagship just rammed the entire fleet."

"Why would it do that?" Knuckles wondered. "It's heading right into a black hole, isn't it?"

"Yes, but more importantly, so are we," Tails answered, taking control of the _Typhoon_. He used the turning jets to slow the ship's rapid rotation, and as soon as he could, fired the main engines. In his haste, he forgot the damage to one of them. This, combined with the strain of the sudden acceleration, was too much for the single undamaged engine. With a cough and a small explosion, it blew out, and the _Typhoon_ began to lose momentum, moving inexorably closer to the pitch-black mass behind it.


	11. Chapter 11: Forces More Mysterious

**Something I'd like to point out: I've tried to give everyone their time in spotlight at least once. Amy's was in chapters 3 and 4 when she worked to save the other Tails' life; Cream's was when she took out the transport with the Planet Egg; and Cosmo's and, to a Chris's are in this chapter. Okay, now that that's over, let the chapter begin. (Thanks for commenting on Cream, by the way; I'm glad to know the joke came across the right way.) **

* * *

Chapter 11 – Forces More Mysterious

Tails looked up at the small shock that reverberated through the _Typhoon_'s frame. He exchanged a worried glance with Sonic. "That didn't sound good." He looked at Amy. "What happened?"

"I think we just lost the starboard engine," she replied. "That means…" she ran a quick systems check, "…we've lost all sources of impulse power."

"Wait," Sonic interrupted. "Are you saying we're stuck?"

"Worse. We're falling into the generator."

"Not yet, we're not," Tails spoke up. "We've still got some momentum left. We can use that to our advantage." He started to hit keys, setting up his console so that he controlled the turning jets manually, rather than just telling the ship to turn left or right. He fired two shorts bursts, one from the fore-starboard jet and another from the aft-port jet. The _Typhoon _rotated counterclockwise, presenting its port side to the generator. Tails then used two more bursts to stabilize the ship's movement, followed by a sustained stream from the two port jets. The ship, which had begun to fall back toward the intense force, slowed to a fraction of its former speed.

"Even with the jets running at full power, we can't completely resist the pull," Chris informed them. "I hope you've got another plan, Tails."

"Of course he does!" Sonic spoke up. "Tails always has a plan. Right, bro?"

Tails didn't reply. He was still staring at the black circle before them. Only one thought was in his mind, repeating itself over and over in Cosmo's voice:_ There are strange things out there, forces more mysterious than a black hole and more powerful than a supernova…_

Tails stood and turned toward the exit from the bridge. "Keep the jets running," he said over his shoulder. "I'm going to… see what I can do about the main engines." He left. Cosmo watched as the door shut with a hiss behind him. She looked back at the viewscreen and the black cosmic monster beyond, and realized with a jolt what the young fox was thinking. She got up and followed him into the corridor beyond.

Tails was walked quickly down the hallway; Cosmo followed at a run. She caught up with him a few minutes along the corridor and put a hand on his shoulder. He started, and turned to face her. "Where are you going?" she asked.

Tails considered repeating what he had said about repairing the engines, but decided it would be pointless; he wasn't a good liar. He stared at the floor and answered quietly. "The landing bay."

Her guess had been correct, then. "What are you planning to do there?" she questioned.

Why was she asking him this? She must have guessed his intentions already. He raised his eyes from the hard steel floor, but still refused to meet her gaze. "I'm going back. I have to warn our past selves about this disaster." He started to walk away again, but was stopped once more by Cosmo's hand on his shoulder.

"Tails, you know what will happen if you do that!" An image of Tails lying unconscious in the _Typhoon_'s medical bay imposed itself on her mind; she pushed it away. "I won't let you give up your life for the rest of us with out even trying another path."

"You have to let me," Tails replied without turning around. "It's the only way to save all of our lives."

"Tails…" she began.

"No, Cosmo!" he said angrily, turning to face her, his voice rising in volume. After a moment, his expression softened, and when he spoke again, his voice was calmer. "I know you don't understand or like it, but this is something I have to do." He started to walk away.

Cosmo didn't follow, but merely spoke, so quietly he almost didn't hear her. "On the contrary, I think I understand this better than you do."

That got Tails' attention. He turned back toward her. "What do you mean?"

"If you go back to warn us, you'll be doing exactly what the other you did," she replied. "If his warning causes you to repeat his actions, nothing will ever come of it. It'll become a mobius cycle, and no one will ever be able to stop it."

"I won't do it the same way the last one did," Tails explained. "Now that we know exactly what we're dealing with…"

"The last Tails knew, too," Cosmo interrupted him. "He probably would have told us, but he never got the chance." She didn't have to elaborate; Tails knew exactly what she meant. The other him had died before he got a chance to say everything he had wanted to.

"But what other way is there?" Tails asked after a few seconds. "We don't have enough engine power to escape the generator's pull, and there's no time to attempt repairs. How can we possibly escape from this alive?"

"I don't know," Cosmo answered honestly. "All I know is that what you're about to do isn't the way."

Tails opened his mouth to argue, but nothing came to mind. She was right. "But… what if we can't escape?" he questioned quietly, once again lowering his eyes to the floor. "What if I fail and we all die because of it?"

He felt her hands on his shoulders, and looked up, meeting her eyes for the first time. "You'll think of something, Tails," she assured him. "I know you well enough to be sure of that." She smiled encouragingly at him, and Tails returned the expression with one of gratitude.

"Besides," said a new voice, "even if you do fail, we won't be any worse off than if you went back." Both of them turned to look, and saw Chris coming up the corridor toward them. "What have we got to lose?" he asked rhetorically, stopping as he reached them. **(A/N: ****Chris didn't have much of a of personality in the anime, so I tried to give him one: generally good-natured and just a little bit sarcastic.)**

Cosmo hurriedly removed her hands from Tails' shoulders and stepped away from him. He addressed both of them. "Thank you, both of you. You've just stopped me from making what might have become my worst decision ever. If we get out of this, I owe you my life."

"We'll probably owe you ours, too," Chris pointed out. "We can call it even. And what's with the 'if?'" he added jokingly. "Were you listening to a word Cosmo just said?"

Tails chuckled. "Come on; let's get back to the bridge." The three of them made their way back up the corridor. Sonic looked around as the door hissed open, admitting them into the bridge area.

"What was all that?" he asked as they returned to their places.

"I'll explain later," Tails replied. "Right now, let's just say I wouldn't be back here if they hadn't followed me." Leaving the hedgehog looking more confused than before, Tails addressed the room at large. "All right, here are the facts. As of right now, both of our main engines are out of commission. Our turning jets are proving to have decent power, but not enough to either boost us away or hold us in place. We have about half an hour with our jets at full force, supposing nothing goes wrong. With all this rubble around, there is a danger of getting hit. What we need to do is either buy a lot more time so we can repair the main engines, or escape on some other mode of transport. Ideas, anyone?"

The first suggestion came, rather unexpectedly, from Knuckles. "Why not just use the turning jets? I could probably coax a bit more power out of the Master Emerald if we need it."

That's a good thought," Tails replied, "but unfortunately I don't think it'll work. You see, the jets are already running at full capacity. Any more would probably overload the power circuits. Keep the part about the Emerald in mind, though; we might need some extra energy later."

"What about the accelerator field?" Chris spoke up next. "It can get us moving at almost light speed, and it doesn't need the main engines to work."

"Once again, a good idea," Tails answered him, "but again, I don't think this one will work. Our power supply is depleted from the battle. By the time we charged up enough energy, even with Knuckles' help, we'd be too close for even the accelerator to get us out. Without the engines to keep us moving, we'd be slowed down before we even cleared the gravity field."

There was silence for a few minutes, before Amy broke it. "Tails, I've noticed something about the generator. In the past few minutes, it's drawn in uncounted tons of rubble from the battle. Something this small should have gotten bigger with all that mass, but it hasn't." She paused for a few seconds, choosing her words carefully. "I don't think the things that it's pulling inside are staying inside."

Tails thought for a moment, and comprehension dawned within his mind. "Are you saying…?"

"That we could escape by letting it pull us in?" she finished for him. "Yes, I am."

"Wait a minute," Cream spoke up. "If all that rubble is getting shot out again, why can't we see it?"

"It's probably just getting shot out the other side," Cosmo reasoned. "It would make sense, since they were pulled in from this direction. The generator might just be focused at us."

Tails was ecstatic. It was so simple! He couldn't believe he hadn't though of it before. He remembered the stream of rubble, traveling forward at close to light speed. That must have been how it was formed! If they could harness that force, they would be saved! However, his joy faded as he realized a flaw in the plan. "We'd be destroyed before we even got to the center. Tidal forces, you know?" By the looks on their faces, they didn't. "Tidal forces occur whenever something is subjected to a strong, rapidly increasing gravitational force," he explained. "The imbalanced attraction deforms the object in question. In simple terms, gravity pulls harder on the front end than the back. Tidal forces around a black hole can pull atoms apart. I doubt this one is that powerful, but it could still tear the ship in two."

"Than we need to find a way to counteract this… tidal pull or whatever," Knuckles replied.

"The accelerator field," Chris repeated, more to himself than the others. When they looked at him in confusion, he explained his train of thought. "When the field is in place, all interactions between particles are suspended. Nothing inside can move relative to anything else inside, except light."

Tails nodded. "It keeps things from flying around inside when the ship shoots off."

"Well," Chris continued, "what if we enclosed the entire ship in a field, starting at the point where tidal forces would become dangerous? It would be strong enough to hold us together until we get launched off into space."

It was a great idea – so good, if fact, that Tails was reluctant to point out a gaping hole in the plan. "Guys, do you have any idea how much power that would take? It causes a huge drain even for the half-second it takes to use it normally. We'd have to keep this up for over a minute. There's no way we can generate that much power."

"Normally," Knuckles finished. "That's where the Master Emerald comes in."

Tails looked up. He was right. There was hope, after all! Still, it would be close, and they would need a lot of luck to make it through alive. "We'll have to plot our course ahead of time," he said out loud, already calculating a plausible route to the right point in the center. "I think, if we do this right, we can make it to the center in… two minutes, twenty-seven seconds. Can we keep a field up that long?"

"Maybe," Amy replied. "I'm cutting power to all non-essential systems, and I'll do the same for the turning jets when you're ready." As she spoke, the lights went out, leaving only the dim console displays and the stars.

"Good. Chris, I'm sending you the flight path. Follow it at the speed marked on there. This should save enough power for about…" He typed on the console for a moment. "…Fifty seconds. Can you handle the rest, Knuckles?"

"Ask me again when we're done," he replied.

"All right, we're on course. Cutting power to the turning jets… now."

* * *

**So, how did I do on the little Tails-and-Cosmo scene? (It's the first time I've tried that, and I want to make sure I didn't fail entirely.)**


	12. Chapter 12: The Final Countdown

**Well, folks, it's finally here - the climax, the big finish, the final countdown to whatever fate has in store for them. I say no more, at least not yet.**

Chapter 12 – The Final Countdown

The _Typhoon_'s bridge crew was silent as, one by one, all but the most important systems were shut off to provide power to the field generators, leaving nothing but the life-support-systems, the ship controls, and the comm. links. The starship went dark, becoming almost indistinguishable from the background. The turning jets were the last to deactivate; the ship picked up speed as the gravitational field, now the predominant force, took hold. Tails poke calmly into the microphone, his voice carrying down to the generator room. "Knuckles, do your stuff."

* * *

Down below, the echidna nodded, forgetting that Tails couldn't see him. The generator room, unlike the bridge, was brightly lit, but not by the ship's power. The light came from the massive green gem resting on a raised platform in the center of the room, surrounded by an array of panels that absorbed the energy radiating from it. This was the Master Emerald, and Knuckles was the one entrusted with its care. He stepped forward toward it, closing his eyes and placing both hands on the smooth, glassy surface. He could feel the immense power coursing within its crystalline depths, and he could hear the voice of the powerful entity inside it. This was Chaos, an ancient being whose power filled the universe and bound the fabrics of time and space together.

Knuckles opened his eyes and stared into the gem's green depths. He saw not what others would have; what he saw were the emerald eyes of Chaos, staring back at him. He raised his voice, letting the feeling of his words flow out of his mind and fill his entire being; only then could Chaos hear them. "Chaos, heed my words. It is taught to all guardians to only call upon your power at times when the need is dire and there is no other option. One of those times is upon us now. Please, lend us your power so that we may survive this day!"

Chaos made no reply. Knuckles stayed still and silent, staring into the green eyes that pierced into his spirit. Then a white brilliance flared within the Master Emerald's depths, followed by a surge of energy so great that it sent Knuckles backward off the dais. Multiple waves of power flowed out, setting the panels aglow with radiant energy.

* * *

"Power levels are increasing!" Amy called out. "Knuckles did it! We'll have all the power we need in about two more minutes."

Tails sighed with relief; they were going to make it. There was one thing he hadn't foreseen, though: the flight path he had plotted took them on a spiraling course that would gradually speed up as gravity increased. He hadn't thought about the possible complications involved with this. The first of these complications began right then.

The first hint of anything odd was a sensation that they all recognized, but had never expected to feel within the _Typhoon_: the ship was tilting. Or rather, it felt like it was tilting; the floor generated enough magnetism to substitute for gravity, so they shouldn't have been able to feel a difference. Then, the feeling stopped, to be replaced by an even stranger sensation of decreasing weight. This soon ended as well, and the tilting resumed, this time in the other direction.

"Wh-what's going on?" Cream asked, trying to keep her balance as she returned to her seat.

"It's the generator!" Tails replied. "We've gotten close enough that we can feel the pull. As we spiral around it, the angle of that pull changes." As he said this, the left tilt began again, more pronounced this time. "The speed and force of the pull will increase as we get closer in." He was right; on the third cycle, they heard a roar from down below, as if a large number of objects had broken loose and tumbled against the walls.

"Beginning the final countdown to field activation…fifteen seconds… thirteen… eleven… eight… five…"

But at that moment, a fourth shift, much faster this time, rocked the vessel. The Master Emerald rocked back and forth, smashing into the collection array and wrecking the fragile constructions. The white radiance faded, replaced by its normal green glow.

"What? We've lost the Emerald!" Chris informed them. "I don't know what's wrong."

"We'll just have to wait a few more seconds to activate the field," Tails reasoned. "We should be okay."

"All right," he replied uncertainly. "Seven seconds to field activation… five… three…"

In that instant, several things happened at once. The ship, now only a few hundred meters from the zone where it would be torn apart, went through a fifth series of tilts, followed by a sixth and a seventh. The Master Emerald flew from its spot and into the air. Knuckles, seeing this, dived forward to catch it. Cosmo was flung into the air by an upward shift; Tails stood, and was promptly hurled sideways. And Chris, not daring to wait any longer, pressed the final key in the activation sequence.

No one on the _Typhoon_ knew anything of the next couple of minutes, but anyone looking in from the outside would see a bizarre series of events, frozen in time. Knuckles, Tails, and Cosmo were all suspended in midair. Knuckles was face-up below the Master Emerald, arms spread wide to catch it; Cosmo was about ten feet or so off the floor; and Tails was directly below her, a look of wide-eyed shock on his face. Everyone else had their eyes squeezed shut, holding onto anything they could to resist the chaotic gravitational fluctuations around them. With everything inside immobilized by the field, the _Typhoon_ spiraled in toward the center and, finally, disappeared inside.

No one could possibly have seen what happened next, but later, Tails and the others were able to figure it out. At the point where the singularity would have been in a true black hole, there was instead a boundary line. On one side was the powerful attraction; on the other was the equally strong pushing force caused by the artificial gravitons. The ship hovered between these two spots for a few seconds, tremendous stress building around the field. Then it crossed some critical point, and was suddenly shot off at close to light speed.

Seconds later, the accelerator field collapsed and normal gravity reasserted itself. Knuckles continued forward, grabbing onto the Master Emerald. He landed hard and slid for a few feet. Tails dropped the two or so feet to the floor, and immediately had something fall on him. No one had noticed anything except a sudden change in the sky around them. Rather than spiraling around wildly, it was now completely still. That was about all anyone could see, for the lights were still off.

"What happened?" asked Sonic's voice from somewhere near the back of the room. "Why did we stop spinning?"

"I'm rerouting the auxiliary power," said Amy's voice. "The backup generator still has some energy left." The lights came on as, one by one, the _Typhoon_'s operating systems cycled back up. Cosmo looked around and saw to her surprise that she had landed on top of Tails. She quickly got off him. Down below, Knuckles sat up and ran his hands over the Master Emerald, looking for cracks. He found nothing; it was as pristine as ever. The echidna gave a sigh of relief.

Back up on the bridge, Tails pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, wincing as he did. He said nothing, and looked around at his surroundings, at the strangely calm bridge, at Cosmo kneeling beside him, and finally at the infinite starry blackness outside. He stared at it for several seconds. When he finally looked away, he was wearing a broad grin. "Seems they haven't managed to kill us yet," he remarked. For a moment, there was no sound except the faint buzz of fluorescent lights and the quiet breathing of the bridge crew.

Sonic, oblivious to all that had happened since the lights came on, was busy trying to disentangle himself from a metal railing along the side of a small flight of steps. How he had gotten there, no one knew. He finally got his left foot free, and staggered backward a few paces before regaining his balance. "What'd I miss?" he asked, turning his attention to the rest of the people in the room.**(A/N: This scene took me a while to think up a before I put it on paper, and a bit longer to make it sound right. I needed some humor near the end to offset all the tension before, both for the audience and for the characters.)  
**

Knuckles heard his words; a short bark of laughter escaped him. The breathless atmosphere throughout the _Typhoon_ broke, and the bridge echoed with the sound of people, both human and otherwise, expressing joy and relief. "What? What did I say?" Sonic asked, bewildered, further adding to the mood. Their laughter was not truly for their friend; he had merely served to release it. The true source of their happiness was what they had just been through: the thrill of victory, the triumphant feeling of overcoming the odds, and the simple notion that they would live to see the dawn of a new day.

When at last their mirth was exhausted and they began to settle down, Amy spoke up. "I guess it really is possible to alter the future. And the past, too, if you think about it; that's exactly what the other Tails did."

"That's something I've been wondering," Tails said, thinking aloud. "If the timeline really has changed, and I didn't go back, does that mean we never received the warning? And what then? Do we keep switching back and forth forever, unable to continue? Which timeline is true? Is either of them true? So many questions left unanswered…"

"Does it matter?" Knuckles remarked from below. "It's behind us now. We survived; the other Tails did his job. Now, let's do ours."

"Besides," Cosmo added, "who's got time to worry about the past when there's so much more to do in the future?"

"After all, the Metarex aren't gone yet," Sonic pointed out. "They're bound to be out there stealing more Planet Eggs even as we speak."

**(Music: LoZ: The Wind Waker - Journey)**

"Things here never stay calm for long, do they?" Tails remarked, returning to his seat. He took hold of the controls and guided the _Typhoon_ away from the path it had been sent along and into space. He knew not where he was going, only that it led to something new. For, though one adventure may come and go, the true journey never stops. You can never know for certain where your path leads until you get there. You can only know that there is only one path to take: forward.

* * *

**Aye, Tails is right: there are a lot of questions left unanswered. I have no intention of leaving them that way. If you're interested, keep an eye out for the appearance of The Fabrics of Time, which is mentioned in my bio. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed my first-ever foray into the field of fanfictions.**


End file.
